Coping With cut Ideas CrazyAmphibian - 20/jun/2023
it is innevitable during the design process of a game that you get and idea, that, for whatever reason, you simply cannot get done.
This, of course, happened in the upcoming release, SSTD. initially i wanted to have gems have another stat set: bonuses. this would be some plus or minuses that would affect the performance of the gems in various aspects.
Why cut an idea?
There's several reasons one would cut an idea from a game.
- Technical Limitations
sometimes the tool set you have might not be able to handle your vision. there is not much you can do about this besides try to go around it. switching tools late in development can really slow things. you'll have to deal with feature disparity and API differences. Normally it just isn't feasible to switch something so major, and so, a feature may be cut.
- Skill Issue
Programmers are people, and by extention, not perfect. sometimes you just don't have the skill (or time to get the skill), or drive, to put the work in the make a feature work. Though me being the god-like code monkey that i am, this never happens to me.
- Lack of Pourpose
More features are great, but having too many features can lead to many of them feeling bland, shallow, boring, and overall feeling like they were just tacked on rather than being carefully added. sometimes less is more. and though it sucks to ged rid of someting that might add a new layer of depth to the game, a lot of the time, your time is better spent on something that will yield results.
- Publisher Pressure
Publishers can be a mixed bag for developers. While they are a great safety net for developers, and allow accsess to more tools, they are, generally, quite hands-on with the game. Sometimes a developer wants to add a feature, but the publisher says no, and well, they signed the contract, so...
- Creative Differences
Some features just don't sit right with the developers. be it just not liking a feature, or feeling like it's out of place, sometimes developers just... don't want a feature in the game and feel it's better without. This, of course, can be contentious, as some people will want that feature.
So, why were gem bonuses cut?
Well, it was number 3.
even now, there's not too much i could imagine gem bonuses doing. it wasn't a feature i put too much effort into, admittedly, but it was one that i wanted for a decent chunk of time. That is, until i decided to just axe it. Not much has really changed in the game as a result. It's simpler, sure, but still at the root the same thing.
coming to terms with a cut idea can be hard, depending on how much was invested both technically and creativly. In this case it was fairly easy. But some advice in general is to ask yourself why the feature needs to be there. If you can't give reasoning in a short sentance, chances are, it's bloat.