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Tycoon City: New York - Developer Diary #3 Feature
Chris Leyton
02/02/2006
To celebrate development recently concluding on Deep Red Games tycoon sim, Luigi Fusco returns for a final chapter...
All good things must come to an end with this being the third and final part of our informal diary chats with Deep Red which has Designer, Luigi Fusco, waxing lyrical about the final touches to Tycoon City: New York which will be released later this month from Atari on PC.
ALMOST THERE!!!
January 2006
'HOLA' to you all from the sunny Spanish Balearic islands! The Tycoon City team have been given an all expenses paid two weeks holiday in Majorca as a treat for getting TCNY to Gold Master! Ahh, life's grand isn't it?"Camarero! Another five jugs of 'Geeky Game Developers Lazing on the Beach' cocktail please! Shaken, not stirred. Oh. And don't worry about the straws this time mate, we'll just sip it straight from the jugs. Cheers!"
Ok, ok. I admit it. We're not really on a beach in Majorca & there is no 'Game developers' cocktail shaken or stirred. We've all just come back from the Christmas break. A new build has already been started and we're 'all go' again.
The final few weeks in a game's development cycle is a funny time. No-one is allowed to make any changes whatsoever unless it's been signed off in triplicate. Bugs will continue to come in and the producer will assess them. If they are deemed important enough, they get fixed. If not, the producer makes a call; do we fix it or do we leave it? Personally, I'm always compelled to fix bugs, no matter how small. I feel that if I can fix it, I can make the game that tiny, teeny bit better. It might be a 'pride' thing or it might just be a natural urge. However, as quick as I am to grab the bug sheet and begin work on fixing the smallest of bugs, in my heart, I know that it's just not that simple.
"You can often hear the chant 'SHIP IT!' being cried out jokingly to indicate it's all working ok."
Any single change that we make could have a cascade effect that would cause a whole host of problems. The tiniest change could cause problems. What if I exported a new script to fix a bug which then somehow went wrong and became corrupt? What if the change had an unexpected game play effect? Imagine if I raised a value slightly too high. The new build would be set in motion with my new script. Once finished, it would be uploaded to New York (the home of the publisher) where the Quality Assurance (QA) team alongside our own UK based QA would begin the task of playing the new build from beginning to end as well as testing for hundreds of different things. A team of ten people playing the game for ten hours each (something that happens daily at this stage), could all run adrift because of my new script. Suddenly, one by one, they will report that the game can't be finished - whether because my value was too high, or the script was corrupt or any other number of reasons. The game would fail submission and we would have to look into what happened and then reverse the effect. My one tiny change could end up costing a lot of time and money as well as delaying the Gold Master from being accepted. So, in light of this, I often bite my lip and agree with the producer that we should let these 'lesser' bugs go at this stage.
At some point, a major bug will be reported and this will be fixed. Whilst this carries the same level of risk, it would have been assessed as being of high enough priority to take that risk, but we do need to make sure we keep them to a minimum.
During these last couple of months of development, both Deep Reds' PR man and the publishers marketing team have been working extremely hard in trying to get TCNY into as many magazines and web sites as they possibly can. We are often sent links and scans of sites and magazines that are previewing the game. It's very rewarding reading these as some of the previews we've had have been fantastic. Some very nice things are being said about the game and it's very satisfying to read that the work we have been putting in over the last couple of years is now nearing fruition. These previews have helped to give people a bit of a lift during these final stages. Of course, previews can't be relied upon as a gauge for how people will react to the final game. We are all looking forward to reading the reviews and seeing the scores we get from magazines and web sights as well as reading the comments and feedback from gamers who will hopefully go out and buy the game. There's quite a buzz associated with completing any game. The team has worked very hard for over two years and you can sometimes feel impatient to see it on the shelves. You can often hear the chant 'SHIP IT!' being cried out jokingly to indicate it's all working ok. The game will be in the shops on 24th February 2006 (all going well) and it will signify a major product on the shelves for Deep Red. We're all hoping that it will be well received and will sell well in order to allow us to make a possible sequel as well as help to fund other games that we have locked up in our top secret 'concepts' attic. Time, as they say, will tell.
Now, I wonder what alcoholic mixers would go nicely into a 'Geeky Game Developers Lazing on the Beach cocktail'!
Tycoon fans can breathe easy as Deep Red Games Tycoon City: New York has indeed past gold status and will be winging its way to shop shelves on February 24th.
TVG would like to thank Deep Red for their amusing and interesting insight into the development of the game and a special mention to Simon Callaghan for making it all possible!
We will have an extensive look at the final title very soon...
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