I wonder about this. Do developers that make amazing games enjoy playing their games or are they so burnt out on the project upon completion that it is just not possible? I make games as a hobby and try to make games that I want to play. However by the time I have finished a project, I have no desire to play it again. However, I can't answer my own question because i have yet to make a great game. When I start a project I think I have a great idea but it has been a learning experience seeing the idea through to completion and then feeling differently about the project. My goal when I started developing games was to make one game that I would want to play on a regular basis. I wonder if this is possible. I am just curious if any developers play their own games on a regular basis. We all play our games to test ect. I am talking about playing your game because you enjoy it.
I think it depends on the amount of time the game has been awaiting development. If you have had a game fully designed for a few years and finally get it developed, at the end of development I believe you would have less desire to play. Conversely, if a game design's origin is relatively fresh and development happens quickly, then I think the desire to play it is much higher. While I believe game designers have longer attention spans than typical gamers (because they have to, as opposed to want to), I dont think that their addiction to playing a game lasts any longer than a typical gamer. In fact, one of the inherent reasons for becoming a game designer is the inner need to add fresh content and create new things to play. I also believe that game designers always see ways to improve or enhance every game they play which ends up spinning them off into a new design as opposed to being content playing a completed game. So while I certainly believe that the quality of the game you design would have some influence over your desire to play it post production, I think being a game designer might make you more likely to play more games for less time each, as opposed to getting completely immersed into one or a few titles. Just my thoughts. I stand ready to be told what an idiot I am by a 10 yr old who plays CoD 12 hours a day.
Yes, I actually still play 3 of the games I have made so far. Interestingly enough, the one I play most was most successful, second most second most successful...the third one was a flop but I still love it. But maybe there is a pattern in that.
Well I played the heck out of Daredevil Dave as I designed it. I mean not just testing, I'd crash him over and over and get carried away. My neighbor heard me laughing once and finally asked me what I do for a living lol. Didn't play it much upon release - sometimes though. It's still fun just to crash him and see how many bones I can break. I played an Injury Mode tour recently. It's so old though and really shows its age.
That's the way it usually goes, but not always Each dev has their own take on it, but from personal experience, although I would prefer to only make the games I intend to play (a lot), in practice we only go ahead with games that show potential as profitable 'business projects' Ofcourse the games we make almost always turn out completely different from what we imagined To answer the OP: right now? No but I hope that will change with our next couple of game projects
Great question The simplest way to answer this is that I played JiggleSaw for about 10 minutes within the last half hour, just for fun. Did I enjoy every minute of testing, well no. Having to play your game for hours everyday, while debugging, testing and polishing is just a chore. You have to remember that and not be too worried that your enjoyment starts to waiver. It's nice to know that a break from playing my game for a few weeks has made it possible for me to have fun with my creation again. Matthew
I've been working on my indie side-project iOS game MageMaze for 2 and a half years now and yes, I still enjoy playing it! Well, at least in general... Lately we've gone back to retool all of the levels starting from the first on up, so I can at the moment only play the basic levels, 1-9. Those I'm getting tired of and am looking forward to opening up another dozen or two levels. But I'm in it for the long haul with this game (obviously!) and I don't think I could have stuck it out this long if I didn't believe in it and enjoy it 100%.
Something else that may factor into how much you continue to enjoy your game is how much it evolves over time. With Cricket Words we continued to modify and tweak game play until it was perfect. In that way it became more and more fun as development progressed. After launch we've continued to add features like 1 player mode and Extreme mode. Every feature like that definitely renews your own interest. I continue to play it often, as does the other developer. __________________________ Cricket Words by Think Tap Work
Wow, great game emdash! Played the web version a bit, and it really have some great gameplay elements... 2 1/2 years a long time though. A great way to test the game without getting tired of it, is to create some randomly generated levels and try to beat them, adding more monsters for each level completed. That way game mechanics are also put to the test. Keep up the good work! On topic: At the end of a development cycle it can be really tiring to test the game over and over (only to realize that new errors keep popping up). The thing that keeps me focused, and still has me playing the game for fun, is the multiplayer effect. Our game, Mathfeud, is a asynchronous multiplayer game, and the competitive elements of the game (and my "I will WIN dammit!" mentality), has me playing the game all the time... The multiplayer element should also make me want to play the game when released, but only time will tell...
After 1.5 years of development on Mikey Shorts, I still enjoy playing it. The only problem is that I don't have time to play. I pretty much only play level 1-1 these days, and that's because I use that level for most of my testing. We are in the process of adding some new levels that I tried out last night, and I realized that I really suck at our game. But if I weren't the developer, I'd probably be wasting my time trying to compete on the leaderboards.
A lot of people play our own games at PikPok. Monsters Ate My Condo was a pretty wide favourite here. Outside of our own games, Subway Surfers seems to have had a lot of love over the past month.
I have the occasional quick blast on ShootStorm. I enjoy it more now that the game has been out for more than 18 months and all the time spent developing is not so recent. But I am still judging the game, and release minor updates based on what I would like to improve (but nothing that ever alters high score chances, I don't want to negate player efforts to get up the high score table), even though sales don't warrant it.
I love playing Pickpawcket. Even though I designed all the levels and know the 'planned' best path I'm still discovering new shortcuts to add a few points here and there. I'm only 21st on the leaderboards and it bothers me. I wish I had a way to spy on the top 20 to find out what shortcuts they found. The other game (Go Native!) not so much... If there were other players online it might be different but I know how the bots think and the game is broken for me.
I appreciate the responses. Part of me thinks as I make better games I will enjoy them more but there is still a part of me that thinks I won't. I have games in development that I enjoy playing and I am trying to look at ways of adding extras to increase replay. GameCenter leader boards and unlocks are must haves for me going forward. A few people here have developed games I really like but I always wonder if I put the time in to create that would I still enjoy it?
As an indie I have yet to develop something that I haven't seriously enjoyed. Ok, our first title wasn't terribly replayable (I'm sure I've put in maybe an hour and a half of playtime total) but our second game is probably my secondmost-played game of all time. I still can pick it up and get lost in it easily I can't say this is always gonna be the case, and I expect to put out some "eye candy" games at some point but they will always at least be fun for a time!
