Independent Games

I wasn't going to post today, but then one of my little dwarven minions felt thirsty, and strolled off a waterfall to get a drink.

I wouldn't mind (he was a fairly non-essential dwarf), but he was the fifth in the last half hour.  There's a whole club of sad and lonely spirits down there in the deeps at the bottom of the canyon.  I watch them occasionally, and every time another dwarf takes the dive, blood from the impact creeps along the water, like something out of Jurassic Park.

Part of the problem is my own understanding of the game.  As I've mentioned before, Dwarf Fortress is incredibly complex.  I've only just started to get my head around machinery - so telling my alcoholic pals exactly where to drink from is beyond me.

Still, a quick peek on the Wiki tells me that the problem happens because dwarves take account of how shallow the water is, but not the flow.  Since water is quite shallow at the edge of a fall, they think that they can waltz right across it.

And that brings me to my main point.  Since the game includes the capability to search for areas with waterfalls, it can clearly identify them.  So it seems like a small step to simply insert a line of code to prevent my bearded buddies from trying to drink near such falls.  But despite the apparent ease of fixing the issue, this is a longstanding problem.  Granted, I don't know how messy the programming is at the developer's end - again, it's a complex game.

When it comes to development then, Dwarf Fortress falls prey a bit to Minecraft syndrome.  Updates are piecemeal, and often slow to correct long-existing issues - whether due to lack of staff, lack of time, or lack of money.  And while Dwarf Fortress is still in alpha, Minecraft no longer has that excuse.  But for all that, the Mojang game still retains the feel of being constantly under development.

I bring this up just to highlight the odd development cycles that some indie game companies go through.  Whether it's a lack of planning, or simply the challenges of juggling another job - for many indies, game-making can be something of a hobby.

But when independent games such as Braid, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, or Dear Esther are released, such bugs don't seem to occur.  Of course, in the case of Braid, the developer is experienced, and I believe the other two use existing engines.  Still, it points to a difference in development styles - and I'm curious as to whether the piecemeal approach owes more to money issues, or is it a matter of preference?  Do people prefer a game to go through public alpha and betas, to never seemingly come out of development, or would they rather wait for something that they can see is definitely the finished product?

To be quite honest, I've no business complaining about Dwarf Fortress: it's free after all - and you get the feeling that it's a hobby of the developer's rather than a job.  And that old argument if you don't like it, don't play it comes to mind.

Still, do these issues matter in the wider industry?  Are companies under any obligation to fix bugs and problems in their games, before releasing new features?  Look at the dragons of Skyrim flying backwards for example.

As I've written this, I've realised that I'm missing something.  Most games are advertised and sold as final products.  Dwarf Fortress isn't.  Minecraft is, but the regular updates are more expansions maybe, than features that should have been in the final product from the beginning.  That's a matter of opinion, but at least they're free.