I get that - I've seen the perfectionist approach of the TLD team.
There are basically two approaches:
- perfectionist: spend a lot of time working on details, pushing the engine boundaries or rearranging the code to achieve consistency/flexibility/optimization (GetAssista
), in order to satisfy aesthetic urges and eventually wow the crowds
- pragmatist: get things done adequately in the shortest time possible, in order to release
There is no better or worse approach, it depends on what are you trying to do.
I was once a perfectionist, but then I
took an arrow to the knee realized that time is limited and you better do the important gameplay stuff first, and worry about fancy details later.
To put it differently, I'd rather do the random space miners and worry about how they affect gameplay. Of course, players won't notice how finely balanced the miners are at first, but will stare at the lava and post how impressive it is. After weeks of playing and staring at lava, however, they will continue or stop playing based on the miners (a metaphor I hijacked for gameplay
).