How Independent Game Developers Depend on Feedback (And the business decisions involved in Broforce)

EvanGreenwood

A journalist by the name of Anne Gonschorek asked me some questions about testing games. The idea was to create an article full of practical advice about developing video games. It got pretty in-depth, and largely had to do with the process we used to develop Broforce and feedback and testing affected our decision making process.

"A Jury of Peers: How Independent Game Developers Depend on Feedback"

https://www.offerzen.com/blog/a-jury-of-peers-how-independent-game-developers-depend-on-feedback

Honestly, I think there's a lot of good advice in there. And some of the advice I feel like Free Lives should be taking itself. I look back on the development of Broforce and see a lot of smart decisions that I'm not certain we're replicating in games like Genital Jousting.

And it's complete with clever diagrams of the processes! (that are explained within the article)



Hope there's some insight some of you can draw from it.

Denzil

I think "Is improving the game further worthwhile?" is a VERY difficult question to answer :) I think it goes both ways. People keep failed projects alive, and sometimes people prematurely scrap projects that could've had lots of value. Sometimes major, worthwhile changes are the smallest implementation details.

Edit: I suppose getting lots of feedback from the right kinds of people is the way to be sure!

EvanGreenwood

@Denzil Absolutely! Did you read the article? I'd hope that there's an explanation in there about how we've made those kinds of decisions.

In fact, the article may as well have been called, "Is improving the game further worthwile?". (though that doesn't mean my advice succeeds in making that question any easier)

Denzil

@EvanGreenwood Not yet, getting to it! :)

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Here we go:

“If people say: ‘This is cool’, you should probably stop working on it.”

Broforce, in contrast, had people asking for the final game release. They wanted to play the full experience: “If people want to have an hour long conversation about it with you, that’s when it’s probably good,” he says.