I had a minor moment with Mini Metro today. The game is in a weird state right now as I’m cramming in all of the functionality before polishing or balancing any of it. There are ugly placeholders and unfinished transitions everywhere, and the game itself is so unbalanced it’s barely playable. But it’s nearly all in, so I took a few minutes to actually play the game, something I rarely do at this point in development!
Now I have barely any credentials or experience as a game designer. Lots as a game developer, but in my professional career that’s entirely consisted of writing code. Design was always somebody else’s job. So it was great today to play Mini Metro this afternoon, with all the functionality finally in there, and get a real sense of how it’s going to come together. And I think it’ll be good!
All through development I’ve been nagged by the thought that there’s just not enough in the mechanic to make the leap from Interesting Ludum Dare Concept to Fully-Fledged Game That People Will Pay Good Money For. But just playing that one game has convinced me we can shape what we’ve developed so far into something worthwhile. Hopefully we can deliver!