First Dev: “Oof. Uh…hm. Ok. So…no, give me a second, I’m thinking…So, the player character already has an attribute for a familiar that we’re not using, since we removed familiars from the game. We could use that as a scarf, I think. One of the options was a tiger that walked next to the character, we could translate that up and around to the neck. Animation would be tough…could we come up with some reason why the scarf sticks to his shirt? …no? How about a reason why it’s always fluttering behind him? …ok. So yeah, that should work…I think. We’re a month out from code freeze, so we won’t be able to do much with it other than put it in.”
After launch
Project Manager: “Hey, people on Twitch have discovered that some of the player’s clothes disappear randomly if you lose to the lich in level six…?”
Second Dev: “Weird. I’ll take a look…”
Second Dev, in Slack: “Hey, does anyone know why all of the neck-slot customization items are coded as cats? Turns out the Dog Lich still deletes cat familiars if you lose to it.”
Also a cautionary tale on adding and removing features without plan or controls. Every ‘hey could we add…? It’s what everyones talking about!’ is another step taken away from the design.
First Dev: “Oof. Uh…hm. Ok. So…no, give me a second, I’m thinking…So, the player character already has an attribute for a familiar that we’re not using, since we removed familiars from the game. We could use that as a scarf, I think. One of the options was a tiger that walked next to the character, we could translate that up and around to the neck. Animation would be tough…could we come up with some reason why the scarf sticks to his shirt? …no? How about a reason why it’s always fluttering behind him? …ok. So yeah, that should work…I think. We’re a month out from code freeze, so we won’t be able to do much with it other than put it in.”
After launch
Project Manager: “Hey, people on Twitch have discovered that some of the player’s clothes disappear randomly if you lose to the lich in level six…?”
Second Dev: “Weird. I’ll take a look…”
Second Dev, in Slack: “Hey, does anyone know why all of the neck-slot customization items are coded as
cats? Turns out the Dog Lich still deletes cat familiars if you lose to it.”Oh man, this has really cracked me up. You made me laugh so hard I was at risk of waking up my housemates
Also a cautionary tale on adding and removing features without plan or controls. Every ‘hey could we add…? It’s what everyones talking about!’ is another step taken away from the design.