GOG.com
Donate to Codex
Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games

Avadon - Getting It Done

Click here and disable ads!

Avadon - Getting It Done

Game News - posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Fri 28 January 2011, 10:50:13

Tags: Avadon: The Black Fortress; Jeff Vogel; Spiderweb Software

Seems that Avadon: The Black Fortress is nearing its release date, according to Jeff Vogel, who's aiming for a late February release on Mac.


Games Are Like Giant Cubes of Jello

One of my favorite books on software development describes an unshipped piece of software as a ten by ten by ten foot cube of jello. When you finish it, it is wobbling and shaking. Then, slowly, the vibrations stop and it becomes stable. However, whenever you poke the jello, it starts to wobble again and it takes a long time to become still.

Avadon is a huge cube of jello that is wobbling like mad. As testers play it and don't find serious problems, it stops wobbling. When I make a change, any change at all, I poke it. When the jello is almost still, I go, "OK, I will release the game ... NOW!" and hope it isn't broken. This is how the process works at its best.

So fixing bugs now is a process of triage. When I get a bug report, I think, "Is this serious enough to risk fixing it, bearing in mind that my fix might completely mess up the game?" As we get closer and closer to the ship date, more and more minor issues get kicked off to the v1.0.1 release.

If you've ever wondered why games ship with bugs, this is part of the answer. There is no excuse for releasing a broken game. However, small flaws are always tolerated in order to avoid disaster. Perfection is for v1.0.4.
But when will the windows version be ready?
Spotted at: RPGWatch

There are 13 comments on Avadon - Getting It Done

Site hosted by Sorcerer's Place Link us!
Codex definition, a book manuscript.
eXTReMe Tracker
rpgcodex.net RSS Feed
This page was created in 0.05776309967041 seconds