Summary
Mainstream video game development has changed drastically since “video game” became a term of common parlance. Once, teams were comprised of less than one hundred people, when games were smaller, simpler, and of lower graphical fidelity. Today, individual developers tend to get lost in an enormous hierarchy of specialists and leads, a requirement of the technological arms race that has led to the normalization of multiple-year-long development times.
However, no hard rule prevents a team or developer from putting out a cracking game in a short time window. Some of the best games of the last two decades were put together under a year or so. Whether these celebrated development speed runners are exceptions to the rule or proof that a game doesn’t need to bebig or super-detailedis a discussion for another time, but what isn’t up for debate is the quality of these games.
One of the greatest RPGs in history was made by a newly put-together team of developers who were flying by the seat of their pants. With no prior knowledge of Bethesda’s Fallout 3 engine, Obsidian was expected to getFallout: New Vegasoutin under 18 months, presumably so as not to interfere with the sales ofThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimon its legendary 11/11/11 release date.
This extremely tight deadline resulted in many players experiencing a slew of bugs right after the initial release, which, in turn, badly hurt its score from critics and aggregate reviews. However, thanks to Obsidian’s dedication to bug squashing and their churning out of excellent DLC, time has been kind toNew Vegas, and it is commonly cited as one of thegreatest roleplaying gamesof all time.
It seems that the time and effort put into makingSuper Smash Bros. Meleewas as tight and fraught as the gameplay and action found within the game. The punishing conditions of having to completely forgo rest periods, weekends, and, in some cases, sleep resulted in one of the finest fighting games in existence.
The13-month deadlinecame at a price for everyone working onMelee, including the game’s head developer, Masahiro Sakurai, as the entire team saw their physical and mental health compromised by the end. Perhaps as a side effect of these brutal conditions,Meleeended up not only becoming the deepest in the series but one of the most difficult as well.
With their sixth mainline entry, it may be no surprise to learn that Square had perfected the formula and understood the process of making aFinal Fantasygame. However,Final Fantasy 6, a game that many fans consider to be one of the best in the series for its storytelling, mechanics, music, art, and setting, was built from the ground upin under a year.
While the series had dabbled inmixing fantasy with sci-fiin the past,Final Fantasy 6mixed things up by introducing steampunk as a major element. The game’s story structure saw a drastic departure from previous entries thanks to a shocking twist and the unique design choice of each character potentially being the protagonist.
When developing a follow-up to a successful game, it’s a no-brainer to reuse assets where possible. Given game director Eiji Aonuma’s daunting task of creating a “parallel quest” to the incredibly successfulOcarina of Timein under a year, explaining the reuse of character models as inhabitants of an alternate dimension inMajora’s Mask’s Termina was as much a stroke of genius as it was a necessity.
However, considering that Aonuma and the team developed whole new locations, lore, gameplay, and mechanicswithin such a short timeframeis utterly astounding, especially given the quality of the game with its eerie atmosphere and hauntingly memorable settings and stories.The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Maskis a regular contender for the series' best, impressive considering the quality of the competition.
Having proven themselves with two smash hits on the PlayStation, Naughty Dog was gearing up for the third in theCrashseries:Crash Bandicoot: Warped. Rather than just throwing out more of the same, Naughty Dog gaveWarpedmore variety of gameplay than ever before and built several new engines to accommodate the free-roaming vehicle and flying sections.
If Naughty Dog’sinternal development timelinedetailing the production of the series is to be believed, theCrashteam was incredibly tight-knit fromWarped’s early production in the early days of 1998, which would make something like putting out one of thebest PlayStation gamesof all time in under eleven months a synch (that and the team was comprised of some of the most talented programmers, level designers, and animators in the business).
The much-anticipatedGrand Theft Auto: 6reportedly took over a decade to develop, especially compared toGrand Theft Auto: Vice City, a game that took Rockstara mere nine monthsfollowing its first foray into 3D. According to a former Rockstar developer,Vice Citywas supposed to bea GTA 3 mission packbefore the project ballooned out of scope.
Eventually, the studio agreed that it would be better to ship it as its own game. This arrangement worked out nicely, as the programmers behindGrand Theft Auto 3were occupied with porting the game to the PC. The artists and designers could use their work on the previous game as a base, only occasionally having to ask them for new functionality (relative to their prior ground-up work).
At some unspecified point in gaming history, video games were rated by critics by their length. This led many publishers to make their games as long as possible, resulting inmany bloated playtimes(and explains the unplayed states of so many gamers' Steam libraries). However, one indie developer, Terry Cavanagh, while working on a long-term project, realized that short games could also succeed, and so, in December 2018, he set out to create an impactful, concise experience that wouldn’t generate burnout in his work life.
The result isA Short Hike, a delightfully concise and adorably wholesome game about a bird exploring an island that, for a one-off purchase, delivers the player feelings of discovery and delight. The game launched from Itch.Io in April 2019, making its development time four months, but it was officially released in full on Steam in July of the same year, giving ita total of seven monthsfrom start to finish.
Back in the series' heyday, Capcom recognized the popularity ofMega Manand aimed to release approximately one new game each year.Mega Man 7, released in Japan in March 1995, was originally part of this annual schedule. However,according to one of its senior programmers, miscommunication, conflicting design philosophies, and issues with an external team made the project fall apart.
As a result,Mega Man 7’s development began a shocking three months before its deadline, and the remaining Capcom members strapped in for a brutal 90 or so days of intense work. Despite the challenges, their camaraderie and cohesive team dynamic allowed them to produce a solid action-platforming adventure that, while noteveryone’s favoriteMega Mangame, still holds a special place among many fans.
Although the indie video game market (and the video game market more broadly) has changed since 2013,Flappy Bird’s remarkable story is worth remembering. Thesimple but ridiculously engaging gameabout tapping a flapping bird through some oddly familiar vertical green pipes took the world by storm. Perhaps surprisingly, given the minimalist principles underlyingFlappy Bird’s design, the game wascreated in about a weekend.
Dong Nguyen, the Vietnamese creator behind the flap, claimed that “people prefer imperfect things,” which, whether it has any credence or not, is an interesting consideration for any aspiring developer. After receiving accusations of plagiarism (presumably some from Nintendo) and unwanted pressure and attention, Nguyen took the game down after only a few months. However, its status as a viral sensation created in such a short time cemented its place in the annals of gaming history.
