ogreteeth.com
unprofessional creativity

A Problem with Pre-releases
Two weeks ago now, I put up an early alpha prototype of a new game Starscape up along with a website that had just enough of the core integration to make it testable. Within a day or two I had tracked 16 downloads, and found major problems with the game-as-posted - mostly having to do with me knowing in my head how to play and other such forgetting-to-put-things-on-paper issues.

So what did I learn there? Mostly to bake things more. As it also happens, there's a very interesting blogpost written by game designer Ryan Macklin about a very different aspect of this very topic (read it here) that has everything to do with losing out on potential energy and hype. Now I just need one more blog to post something about this for a perfect storm of "regret" (which I'm more chalking up to learning experience).

And now what do I do about it, now that its out there and this craptastic version of my game is available for people to be disappointed in? Part of me wants to leave it as a signpost to myself, the internet equivalent of a head on a spike warning what happens to games that show up on the website too early. Part of me wants to take it down, hide it away, and secretly hope the 16 or so people who followed the link either didn't download the game at all, or won't bother to play it. And still, the largest part hopes that I get some interesting feedback that has a glimmer of hope to it. Time will tell.