Avoiding the Redo Monster in VR and Game Development

MattUdvari
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Our company, Part Time Evil, is a team made up mostly of people from 3d video games and VR. Recently, we did a crazy 2.5 week AR project. And after recovering from the lost sleep, I realized that we only succeeded because we were all on the lookout for the “redo monster,” and we successfully avoided his gaze. Part of this was due to our wonderful partners, who displayed more poise than I’ve seen in a long time.

Our team has been through the “redo cycle of video games” many times. What’s that? If you’re from the game development world (the AAA one) this will sound VERY familiar.

What is “the redo cycle of video games”? Cue the scary music

1) Game development is proceeding well, but the schedule is tight.

2) Some executive sees something they don’t like in the game, or maybe there is actually something that isn’t working.

3) A change is made in the design to fix that thing.

4) This new change has it’s own flaws (everything has a flaw). 5) Make a change to the change. Repeat the process.

END RESULT- After doing this a few times, there’s 6 months until the game needs to ship, there are 2/10 levels completed, and everyone’s life will henceforth be miserable. And even worse, it will be miserable to complete a project that has no chance of excellence.

Pain Break

Lets take a time out and I’ll give you some humorous examples from real life.

  1. Open world games are really hot. Lets make this FPS shooter open-world, in third person. That’s easy right.
  2. Co-op is hot right now. Lets add co-op. Ok let’s not add it now that you all spent 4 weeks doing it.
Notice how the redo cycle adds a step (you have to “do the thing” again), but it also wastes work.

Solution (here comes the sports metaphor)

I’ve always had a theory that this part of games (I know Im sorry here comes a sports metaphor) is like being a running back. When you’re running down the field, you encounter the defense. You can juke left, you can juke a second time to the right. But then you have to run. If you stand there juking, you’re gonna get tackled in that spot. But if you at least try to run, you’ll have a chance of gaining yards.

A lot of game development cycles stand there juking and never run. A choice is always better than no choice. Or in a better way of saying it: the 80% good design choice, when nurtured by a sure hand, will turn out great. The 90% good design choice, when arrived at after 5 jukes, at the 11th hour, is nothing. It’s garbage. So the moral of the story is pick a direction, be confident, and stick with it. Tweak it and make intelligent changes to the actual flaws.

There’s a lot more bad execution in the world than bad ideas.

Not for Prototypes

Someone asked me, “but what about protos”? Prototypes are the exact opposite. Throw things out, try new things, and never stay committed to an idea. Even the good ones.

To use another metaphor, prototypes are like improv in theatre. Try something for a bit, see how it flies, test it with an audience, and move on. You’ll know what feels like a winner, and you can make something great from it.

MattUdvari

Written by

VR and AR creator. Founder of Part Time Evil, LLC.

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