The Diviner: How Game Development Evolves

I'm making a game, and I'm learning a lot about how that all works. I've not really done this before, so I'm getting huge amounts of experience. One of the biggest things I've noticed is that we shouldn't have publicly announced the game until now (or even a month from now). We should have gone to Kickstarter, not four months ago, but now, because of the iterative nature of design.


The game has changed radically since it was initially proposed, and its evolved into something much different than what we originally intended, and what we originally described it as. What's its moved towards is is still what we said we'd do, but I'd describe it differently.

That is to say, the description we used can be accurately applied to the content we have now, but there are more accurate descriptions available. As time has gone on, we've tweaked mechanics and changed back-end cogs, which, while not altering the general focus of the game, have made it significantly different.

Of course, we believe these changes are for the better and will create a better experience in the end for our users, but its been very interesting seeing the game adapt and evolve, even at what feels like a glacial pace.

Working as the head of a team changes how the game adapts significantly. This seems like it would be obvious, but its not something that I had ever had need to consider. When I made Rise of Champions, I was the sole designer, and so when I thought about a mechanic, and decided that it wasn't good enough, it just changed immediately. With The Diviner, despite being the manager, and leading the project, I have to inspect how any changes I make affect the workflow of everyone else, before making a decision. Furthermore, there are areas where I have little to no expertise, and so I can't make the best judgement calls on how to improve the game.

For example, we've altered the way we approach the storyline a couple times, but alone, I wouldn't have altered anything. However, my writers came to me and said "This doesn't work for these reasons. How do we make this better?" Similarly, some mechanics have been changed due to coding restraints. While I have a working knowledge in both of those areas, its not where my efforts or focused, and so I'm not as quickly aware of issues that arise.

Its a learning experience, which is fantastic. Everyday I work, I get something new. I've been able to interview potential employees, discuss creative development with artists, work on the GUI with graphic designers, and loads of other things. And every step of the way, I get confused, and figure out how to not be.