8/3/99

"The man just liked to talk," he would later tell the police. "Man, I could have walked away to the toilet for ten minutes and he would've told it to the till. If I'd been fifteen minutes the till would have walked away too." -Douglas Adams, *Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency* In the best spirit of keeping up with the quote, I'm going to talk and talk today about the importance of keeping a game balanced. It's easy with pen&paper games; after all, you've got a human Dungeon Master who knows when the monsters are too tough, or when the player's abilities are getting out of hand. It's easy enough to adjust the difficulty of an encounter, one way or another, or to tailor monsters to fit the player's new, buff inventory. It's not so easy when the computer is your Dungeon Master, and it's even less easy when you've got many different designers doing different things. So what do we do? In the spirit of the best heroes (like MacGyver!), we improvise. We have a general idea of the power level the player should have in a certain area, and we adjust the experience point rewards accordingly. We also have a document to track exactly what experience points are offered, by whom, and where in their dialogue the player can expect to receive such a reward (and maybe I'll sell it to you when the game is done, if the price is right [yes, that's a joke - I'm really not serious]). This document doesn't, however, take into account the rewards the player gets for killing creatures, for completing quests outside of dialogues, or any of the other myriad ways a player can find experience. There's only one way to handle that sort of balance: Testing. Rigorous testing. VERY VERY rigorous testing. We don't want the player walking into a situation where she's going to get her butt whipped when she has no other options to get around it. The player shouldn't be unable to solve the game simply because we've made it impossible for her. That's why we love QA. To be sure, we all test our own areas as best as we can manage - but until we're done with development of the game, we don't have time to play the game for 8-12 hours straight, going over every small detail, making sure the game plays well, flows well, and provides an entertaining experience. QA does that for us. They help us provide balance. It's one of the most important tasks in the game. Though come to think of it, almost all the tasks in development are "one of the most important tasks". Okay, forget I said that. Good testing, is, however, crucial. We have good testers. I'm sure you'll agree when you finally finish the game. -Colin

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