Finishing Touches
As a game nears its release to the public, the focus shifts from creating the game to testing and adjusting all the little things until the game looks polished, feels seamless to play, and is as fun as possible!
Eric Tams took the lead on refining the game, to make sure everything from the special effects to clicking an item in the main menu felt smooth and functioned properly.
Among his tasks was adjusting game balance — making sure players could be successful even when using an array of shots and different strategies. This included re-programming certain parts of the game until players thought it felt right.
Eric also ironed out visual wrinkles — for example, when someone launches the game, a sun rises over the Peggle logo. The original animation was choppy because it was linked to the code that ran while the game was loading. He separated the animation from the startup process itself, which smoothed the animation into something cool to watch while the game loads in the background. It’s not the most glamorous work in creating a game, but it makes the game look glamorous!
