The Zelda-style game by Ron Gilbert will be finished in 2025

[cwpab]

Apparently, this was an idea from 2019 that was then abandoned, but he and a couple of people have been finishing the game and it's expected to come out in a few months: https://grumpygamer.com/deathbyscrolling/

He says he underestimated how complicated these games are. He initially went for a super complex game, but had to re-think the design once he understood you couldn't do that with a small study (or something).

So this game goes back to an initial, more simple idea. It looks like he started adding stuff, more and more suggestions from people. And that didn't work well. We'll see how this simple approach works. He says he and the female (I think graphic) designer waste hours in the game without realizing when trying to test it, so that's promising.

[Gryzor]

Mehhh no thanks.

[cwpab]

I just edited the first message to add more details. I'm curious to see how a game designer who's an expert in one genre does in another genre.

[GUNHED]

I just edited the first message to add more details. I'm curious to see how a game designer who's an expert in one genre does in another genre.

Thanks for the update! I would like to see more appreciation for this great project around here though. 

[Anthony Flack]

He says he underestimated how complicated these games are.

Curious to see a veteran designer like Ron Gilbert make such a rookie mistake. 

He says he and the female (I think graphic) designer waste hours in the game without realizing when trying to test it, so that's promising.

That's my #1 reason not to make a long-form game. You're going to waste so many hours testing the thing. That's half the problem for a small team. More than half the problem, even. The hours and hours wasted while testing your long game. Testing takes time and time takes money, and it's time and money not spent on development. 

[cwpab]

What I meant was that they technically loaded the game to test something, but instead ended up playing it for a long time just for fun. Considering it's their own game, that's promising. (At least that's what Ron says  ).

[Anthony Flack]

Yeah, but that's actually a problem when making RPGs and similar long-form games. Everybody gets sucked into playing their own game, and slow games can consume hours of your time. I mean it's not a problem if you don't care how long it takes. But when you've got a game that takes 50 hours to complete and can be done 50 different ways, then testing can easily become your biggest time sink. Before you know it, you realise you've spent a large portion of your dev time grinding your own game.

At least that's been my experience. I would never underestimate how complicated these games are. I mean to say good luck to them, and glad they found a path forward that is more in scope for them, but I'm surprised to see someone with so many decades of experience not having learned this lesson before now.