"No prototypes. Just make the game. Polish as you go. Don't depend on polish happening later. Always maintain constantly shippable code." - John Romero

For one project, John Carmack hacked out a beta in two weeks in a cabin retreat and then spent ages polishing it up.

The first 90% of the effort is getting it working and then the next 90% is the polishing the result.

I think one of the biggest problems indie game devs have is putting a lot of focus into art and polish without actually working out whether the game is fun to play. The dev gets to make enjoyable incremental progress without having to confront the difficult questions about whether the game is actually workable. Some games can get by purely on story and art, but in the vast majority of cases I think solo devs would be best served by making an absolutely minimal gameplay prototype and making it fun before thinking at all about polish.

> Polish as you go

Best way to end up bikeshedding.

This is why it’s good to intentionally go between the micro and macro and define some design goals or pillars. The latter give you a razor by which to judge the game and the former stops you getting stuck in the weeds.

I broadly agree with the Romero quote, getting the game playable as quickly as possible and keeping it playable is easily the most effective way of crafting a game because it enables you to routinely playtest and understand your progress. A key element of that is making the game legible and for that you do need to spend some time on “polish” because it’s an intractable element of the whole.

> keeping it playable is easily the most effective way of crafting a game because it enables you to routinely playtest and understand your progress.

Obviously.

> A key element of that is making the game legible and for that you do need to spend some time on “polish” because it’s an intractable element of the whole.

What does "legible" mean? Polishing means making something production-ready. A polished feature contains (ideally) no known bugs, has been thoroughly tested, gone through several UX iterations and brought up to a release standard.

That's not necessary for playtesting and improving the game. Unless you're done with all core game mechanics, you shouldn't be polishing.

Legible means clear enough to be understandable and polish can be a clear part of that including selling the game feel. It’s a pretty classic move to under-appreciate how much feedback from a game players need to understand it.

Your definition of polish is much narrower than mine and I fundamentally disagree with you on the value of polishing during development through bitter experience.

sounds believable, i'm not sure its helpful.

i think that also sums up John Romero tbh...