Chris Crawford on Game Design

Results

LESSON 72 No matter what the schedule says, give the game enough time to get it right.

Guns & Butter was a collection of clever, occasionally brilliant ideas crammed together with insufficient integration. The input/output charts of the economy should have shown the player the intricacies of a working economy in a way that was easy and fun. The facial displays were a huge technological leap forward. And the diplomatic system could have made the game especially interesting. But these good ideas did not perform well together, and the result was the worst game I ever designed. Sadly, this could have been one of my best games. I attribute my failure to a single blunder: my failure to properly polish the game.

I was in too much of a hurry ...