Tagged: tips


11 pet peeves game developers need to fix

  1. Do not ask me to select where my saved game is located when I only have 1 storage device attached – it’s pretty obvious where it’s going to be
  2. Do not tell me you are loading my profile, fade that message off screen, then fade another message on screen telling me you are now loading my profile elements – do it all at once and spare me the transition time
  3. Do not make me sit and wait while you attempt to connect me to your online network – EA are perticularly bad at making you wait while the game attempts and all too often fails to connect to their network, background task that please
  4. Count me back in after I unpause my game – having a few seconds to get my hands back into position on the controller would save a lot of missed notes in music games and off track excursions in racing games
  5. Let me skip cutscenes, you may have lovingly crafted them and spent many an hour perfecting them but once is enough – if I just want a quick game don’t make me sit and wait
  6. Conform to standard controller layouts – even if your biggest competitor came up with said controller layout first it will help gamers transition to your game easier and not get frustrated
  7. Give me a visual progress bar when loading, a non-descript spinner is no good – I need to know if I can make it to the kitchen and back before I’m thrown into battle with a dry mouth
  8. Allow me to cancel loading screens and go back to the main menu – seldom done but accidentally hitting the wrong menu item can incur a frustrating few minutes of load, pause, quit, wait for main menu to load, then selecting correct menu item
  9. Stack your difficulty achievements – I ain’t playing it on Easy and Medium after I already completed it on Hard
  10. Do not outsource the Multiplayer section of your game – I bought the game primarily for the single player campaign, once I’m used to that I’ll expect the same experience from the multiplayer and if it’s all kinds of different I ain’t going to be happy
  11. Let me skip the end credits – I don’t watch them at the cinema and I don’t expect to have to sit through them after I complete the game, you want me to play it again right?

These are just some of the things that regularly get on my nerves. Are there any I have missed?