Polish: Turning Onetime Players Into Diehard Fans

How can a game feel like it was made by the developers “out of love”?  How can a game seem like the developers implemented everything that they thought would be fun and interesting, lacking nothing?  How can a game feel like it went 110% to provide a top-notch experience?

There are many components to making a game.  There are the Base Mechanics, the rules of how the game works.  There are the Punishment and Reward Systems and Long Term Incentive, which fuel why the player plays and for how long.  And there is the Aesthetic Layout, the artwork, sounds, and polish layered on top of the rest of the game that help to fill out its Core Experience.

We’ve discussed before how the gameplay, what they player is actually doing, is more often than not the most important aspect of a game’s design.  But left alone, the Base Mechanics of a game are just mathematical constructs.  Without aesthetics, the game feels stale to most non-engineers.  These rules and gameplay blocks must be built.  However, once that has been taken care of, how can a developer get their game to be perceived as the highest quality?  What are the indicators of a good versus a great game?

This final, key 10% of the game is what is referred to in the industry as “polish”.  It is the time in development when the game could in fact be considered “done”, but just a few more features, tweaks, and sparkles will help it to shine through to players and stand out from the crowd and breathe life into it.  Well polished games are described with words such as “charming”, “engrossing”, “fascinating”.  Well polished games are loved by their players. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »