Maker Log #2 - Why I waited with external playtests for 18 more months
I’ve been working on The Maker Way for more than four years now. Given that I started with zero knowledge in game dev, the first couple of years were really focused on getting to learn Unity, Blender, C#, Animation, Environment Design etc… you get the point.
At some point I really need to pen down a blog post about the history of the game. There are some really amusing videos from very early builds :)
In June last year, I posted an early alpha version to Itch.IO. Some people played it and gave me good feedback, but I realized something important - they were not playing the game that I wanted to make, they were playing the game that I was capable of producing at that point.
I really value care and excellence being put into products and I just hated that I put out something that I wasn’t proud of because I felt pressure to get some playtesters.
So I took the time and went back to the lab, or to be accurate more of a small home office.
Been building and testing and building more and testing more for the last 18 months. This goes against every advice from some incredible game developers such as Jonas Tyroller (really recommend his Youtube channel if you are into gamedev) and others. But I took comfort in knowing that at least one game dev took a similar approach - Eric Barone, who made Stardew Valley:
Traditionally, video games are playtested extensively—dozens, if not hundreds, of people kicking the tires, looking for bugs and issues. But even more than that, games are a form of art built on complex systems and code. Playtesters are often asked, Is this game even fun to play?
Remarkably, Eric was the only person to play Stardew Valley until the very last stages.
And today, 18 months later, I finally got a decent playtest version up and running on Steam. I also started giving out keys to play testers.
I’m still very far from the vision and aspiration I have for the game but it is a good point to iterate from.
From here, the plan is to have regular updates while gradually expanding the approved playtesters pool until the game is ready for a full on demo, and later, Early Access.
