The fact that they’d played the same amount, and they’re both ultra hard-core gamers and very competitive, meant I could trust that if they were each winning about 50% of the time, I had a balanced mechanic. Every time I’d add a significant feature, I’d test with Paul and Ian, take a bunch of notes, go back and tune the feature if it was unfair (sometimes while they waited), and then we’d test again until it was balanced. This was a huge relief, because SpyParty is a highly asymmetric game, so balancing the Spy versus the Sniper is a subtle and difficult challenge. It’s an audience of two.įor most of the development, everything was rosy, and Paul and Ian were evenly matched. If I come to a decision where I have to choose between making the game better for newbies or better for Paul and Ian, I choose the latter. If anybody else has a good time playing, that’s a great bonus, but right now, Paul and Ian are the most important SpyParty players in the world. Given my depth-first, accessibility-later development philosophy, I am basically designing the game for these two guys. I’m really lucky to have these two friends who are happy to play my game so often and for so long 2. When you’re trying to make a really deep player-skill game, you need to have people like Paul and Ian who will play your game a lot and get very good at it. Ian, a designer on The Sims, is partial to playing Sniper. Paul, on the left, is a designer on DarkSpore, and he specializes in playing the Spy.
#How to get better at spyparty code#
They’ve played the game more than anybody else, including me if you don’t count my daily code testing 1. Both have played around 10 hours of SpyParty across multiple sessions. Meet Paul and Ian, my elite SpyParty playtesters. The fellow on the right looks like a pretty nice guy, no? Well, take my advice: don’t go to a party where he is lurking outside.
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