마인드 오버 마그넷: 게임 개발 여정과 교훈

마크는 2024년 11월 6일 출시를 목표로 콘텐츠를 간소화하고 다듬기 및 플레이 테스트에 집중하여 마인드 오버 마그넷을 완성하기로 계획을 변경했습니다.

### "마인드 오버 마그넷" 개발: 범위와 마감일의 균형 맞추기
* 마크의 원래 '마인드 오버 마그넷' 계획에는 **50개의 퍼즐, 5개의 월드, 3개의 마그넷 친구**가 포함되어 있었으며, 마감일은 **2024년 12월 31일**이었습니다.
* 📆 마감일이 다가오자 마크는 **출시 목표를 달성하기 위해 범위를 조정**해야 한다는 사실을 깨달았습니다.
* 🎮 많은 개발자가 **"The Wind Waker"와 "Shadow of the Colossus"와 같은 예를 들며 게임이 원래 계획보다 적은 콘텐츠로 출시되는 경우**가 많다고 말했습니다.
* 🗓 마크는 마감일을 맞추기 위해 **퍼즐, 월드, 메커니즘을 일부 줄여 게임을 40개의 퍼즐, 4개의 월드, 2개의 자석 친구**로 줄이기로 결정했습니다.
* 🔍 게임이 거의 완성된 상태에서 마크는 **다듬기, 플레이 테스트, 사소한 콘텐츠 조정**에 집중했습니다.
* 🎉 '마인드 오버 마그넷'은 마크의 첫 번째 유튜브 영상이 공개된 지 정확히 **10년이 되는 2024년 11월 6일**에 개봉할 예정입니다.
* 📈 폴리싱 단계에서 게임이 크게 개선되었고, **플레이 테스터들은 즐거운 경험**을 했습니다.
* 👾 마크는 게임의 '완료' 시점을 결정하는 데 있어 **특정 마일스톤에 도달하는 것보다 개인 한계를 설정하는 것**이 더 중요하다고 강조하며, 게임의 '완료' 시점을 결정하는 것이 어렵다고 말합니다.

Hi. My name's Mark, and I am making Mind Over Magnet, a cute and charming puzzle platformer about - and this is no word of a lie - magnets. Okay, so in this episode of Developing, I am really pleased to announce that Mind Over Magnet is finished. Wait, let me rephrase that slightly. Mind Over Magnet is done. And those two things are actually very different. Let me explain. Okay, so in a previous episode of Developing, I talked about how I had made a plan to finish Mind Over Magnet. And it went something like this. Design 50 unique puzzles. Create 5 different worlds. Build a whole bunch of different mechanics. Introduce the player to 3 different magnet friends. And write an involving storyline with twists and turns. That all sounds pretty good, but I also had another slightly secret plan. Which was to finish the game in 2024. No later than December 31st.

I refused to work on the game for another calendar year. But as the months started to march on, it became increasingly clear that these two plans were essentially incompatible. Because when I looked at all the content I still had to create, and also factored in stuff like polishing, bug fixing, marketing, burnout, breaks, travel, making YouTube videos, and running the GMTK game jam - starts August 16th - it was looking like I wouldn't hit my deadline. And trust me, I really want to hit that deadline. I've been working on this game for over 3 years, which was never the plan. But I do desperately want to release this game this year. I want to move on. I want to stop thinking about magnets. I want to make other games. I want to make other videos. And I feel like I am really straining the patience of my very generous Patreon backers.

including the 38 new supporters who have joined 
the campaign since the last episode of Developing. Hang in there. I'm almost done. So if I'm not willing to change the 
deadline, I guess I've gotta change the plan. But that kind of feels like cheating. Well, I took a few Zoom calls and popped 
to the Develop Conference in Brighton, and started talking to other game developers 
about their experience of finishing games. And basically, everyone told 
me the exact same thing. That very few games ship with all of the ideas, levels, mechanics, and story beats 
that the developer originally intended. And in fact, it's super common for 
a game's scope to change at the very last minute in order to hit the game's 
release date or to come in under budget. And in fact, some of the greatest 
games of all time are missing significant amounts of content due 
to last-minute changes in scope. Nintendo scrapped two whole dungeons from 
The Wind Waker to make the release window.

Shadow of the Colossus was supposed to have 48 colossi. It ended up shipping with just 16. And in Dark Souls, Lost Izalith and the Bed of Chaos were cobbled together quickly to meet the game's deadline. And in that case, it might have been better if they were just cut from the game. And I think this is just a universal truth for making art. I mean, back in 1933, French poet Paul Valéry said a work is truly never completed... French poet Paul Valéry said a work is never truly completed, but merely abandoned. A quote that is more usually attributed to poetry expert George Lucas. But I think there's a fundamental fight between wanting to put absolutely everything into the game, and wanting to release the game while you're still alive. And it sucks, but I'm not getting any younger. So I did it. I changed the plan.

Instead of 50 puzzles, I could happily ship with about 40. And instead of five worlds, I could squeeze things down to end in just four. And how about the three magnets? Like, originally you would meet Magnus. Then Max, a magnet that you can throw. And then Maggie and Meg, a single magnet that can switch between two sisters and two polarities. But I realised I could make do with just two magnets. I could get rid of Max. Then have you meet the switcher magnet earlier, but she's missing the power to switch polarity. Then you could unlock that ability later on in the game. That saves assets and streamlines the story. In terms of mechanics, I could stand to drop a few of them. This scissor gate leads to some really annoying bugs I'd rather not deal with. And I haven't made any levels for the mighty magnet, so let's ditch that idea also.

And does my game really 
need an involving storyline? I'm not much of a writer, and the 
cutscenes only really need to exist to give you motivation to escape the factory 
and to break up the endless puzzle solving. So that can be simplified down dramatically. So I started to work to this new plan. I made a few more levels, I wrote a short story, 
and within a couple months the game was done. You could play the game from the introductory 
cutscene to the final credits roll. There were four worlds with lots 
of puzzles, mechanics, and magnets. And it had a storyline that... existed. And now I just needed to 
fix up all of the problems. So I went through the game with a 
fine-tooth comb and ran a bunch of playtests, and made a monster list 
of problems that needed to be fixed. This looks pretty ugly, so let me fix that. The game goes weird if a magnet dies 
while talking, so let me change that.

Magnets can get stuck on corners in weird ways, so that needs to be remedied. And whenever a playtester found a way to skip a puzzle in a weird, unexpected way... Uhh, I have no idea if that was the intended solution. I would change the level to impede that. But this process wasn't just about fixing bugs. It also just changed the way I worked. Because now that I have the game in front of me as a complete package, I can see the game in its entirety from beginning to end, I could see where the game still needed work, where the game was lacking. And because the game is basically done at this point, I could make much smarter decisions about how to spend those last few weeks and months of development. So for starters, this new story is really not very interesting. So I threw in a few extra cutscenes and made a slightly more involving narrative that pokes

a little fun at artificial intelligence, 
and has a tiny twist to keep you guessing. It's still not going to win any awards 
for storytelling, but it's something. I also really missed the scissor gate mechanic, so I fixed the bugs and put in a 
couple levels featuring that device. It also felt kinda anticlimactic 
to finally have access to all of the magnets, and only have a few levels to play. So I made more puzzles for that section of 
the game, including a more exciting finale. And at this point, World 4 had 
become kinda bloated with about 20 levels compared to the 15 or so 
stages in the other three worlds. So I went back to the original plan, and 
split the game into five worlds again. Only the last world is much 
shorter than the others. Which I'm fine with. By the time the player has gotten all of 
the magnets and reached the rooftop of

the factory. I don't think they want to do another whole world of hard puzzles. That kinda brings the pacing to a halt. So having world 5 be surprisingly short can make the game finish on an exciting high. And finally, I didn't like how anticlimactic it felt to move between worlds. So I added a little transitional stage at these key points in the game. But that is it. No more levels, no more mechanics, no more magnets. At some point I had to just decide to lock down the content and decide that this was everything that was going to be in the game. And from that point on, to focus my attention exclusively on polishing and playtesting. And that lets me worry about really small things, like when a playtester is disappointed that there's no dialogue for a specific interaction. Actually, I kinda wanna see if there's dialogue for that. Okay, there isn't.

Well, I can just add that in. Also, some playtesters didn't realize that the game had a hint system, so I added a pop-up that appears if you're stuck on a level for a certain amount of time. And so at this point, I'm now playtesting the game almost every single day. Just subtly changing things to make it better. And you know what? The playtests are now getting really quite good. People are having fun. People are liking the game. Wow, okay, wow, that was... Now I need to go sleep. That was crazy. Okay, okay. And I guess you could look at it like this. When I was producing new content, the game was getting longer, but it wasn't really getting much better. But now I'm focusing exclusively on polish, the game is just getting better and better with every update. And the morale boost of a good playtest cannot be understated.

So I'm getting really excited to show this game to more people. And so I am excited to announce that Mind Over Magnet now has a release date. The game will launch on Windows, on Steam, on November 6th, 2024. That is still a long time in the future, that's still three more months to go. I could make a lot of levels in that time, but instead I am focusing exclusively on polishing, playtesting, marketing. It'd be nice to go into the launch with a few more wishlists. And maybe I'll get the Mac and Linux builds ready for launch as well, but no guarantees. Plus there's also a sentimental reason behind that release date, because on November 6th, 2014, I uploaded the first episode of Game Maker's Toolkit to this YouTube channel. And so it feels kind of apt for me to release my first game on Steam exactly ten years after that.

I hope you'll check it out. So that is what I've learnt about finishing games. That there is no finish line. There is no goalpost. There is no giant pipe that sucks up 
you and all of your magnet friends. There is no external sign 
that the game is finished. You just have to stand up, say this 
is it. I'm done. I've called it. You just have to be okay with content going 
unfinished, and ideas being unexplored. But hey, there's always the sequel, right? This is not an announcement of Mind Over Magnet 2. Do not take that seriously. But while it is incredibly hard and scary 
to just decide that the game is done, it does come with some advantages. It allows you to see the game in its 
entirety, so now you can make more informed decisions about where to spend 
those last few months of development. And because you've changed your focus 
from endless content generation to just

pure playtesting, and polishing, and perfection, the game just seems to get exponentially better in these last few weeks and months. With every playtest, and every day, and every week, the game just seems to get better and better until it just feels like it could be a pretty good video game. But in terms of Mind Over Magnet, I guess that is on you to decide on November 6th, 2024. So, I hope that you will check it out when it releases, and I hope in the meantime you will wishlist the game on Steam. It truly does help me out. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.

The hardest thing about finishing a game

Game Maker's Toolkit is a deep dive into game design, level design, and game production, hosted by Mark Brown.

Want to contact Mark? Visit the GMTK website below to find the contact form.


Game Maker's Toolkit

'마인드 오버 마그넷' 게임을 끝내기 위한 도전적인 여정

마크는 당초 2024년 말까지 게임을 완성할 계획이었지만 장애물이 쌓이면서 원래 계획이 비현실적이라는 것을 깨달았습니다.

속임수를 쓰는 것 같았지만 그는 기한을 맞추기 위해 게임의 범위를 변경하기로 결정했고, 이것이 게임 개발 업계에서 흔히 볼 수 있는 관행이라는 것을 알게 되었습니다.

많은 성공적인 게임들이 적시에 출시하기 위해 마지막 순간에 콘텐츠를 크게 변경했습니다.

섀도우 오브 더 콜로서스와 다크 소울은 모두 마감 기한을 맞추기 위해 출시 전에 콘텐츠를 줄였습니다.

본문의 게임 개발사도 몇 달 안에 게임을 완성하기 위해 콘텐츠를 대폭 줄이기로 결정했습니다.

퍼즐, 월드, 자석의 수를 줄이고, 스토리 라인을 단순화했으며, 게임을 완성하기 위해 문제를 해결하는 데 집중했습니다.

개발자는 플레이 테스트 피드백을 바탕으로 게임의 레벨, 스토리, 속도에 큰 변화를 주었습니다.

컷신과 새로운 내러티브를 추가하고, 가위 게이트 메커니즘의 사용을 확대하고, 자석 섹션에 더 많은 퍼즐을 만들었으며, 게임의 월드 구조를 조정하여 페이싱을 개선했습니다.

개발자는 흥미진진한 마무리를 위해 마지막 월드를 더 짧게 만들고, 월드 사이에 전환 단계를 추가한 다음 게임을 다듬고 플레이 테스트하는 데 집중했습니다.

폴란드어에 집중하기: 게임 개발 여정

이제 게임 개발자는 매일 플레이 테스트를 하고 게임을 개선하기 위해 미묘한 변화를 주는 데 집중하고 있습니다.

새로운 콘텐츠 제작에서 다듬기에 집중하는 방식으로 전환하면서 게임의 품질이 크게 향상되었습니다.

개발자는 YouTube 채널 1주년을 기념하는 의미 있는 게임인 이 게임이 곧 Windows와 Steam에 출시될 예정이라 기대에 부풀어 있습니다.

미완성을 포용하기: 게임 엔딩의 기술

게임 종료는 명확한 종료 시점이 없는 주관적인 결정으로, 새로운 아이디어를 탐색할 수 있습니다.

게임을 끝내기로 선택하면 플레이 테스트와 다듬기로 전환할 수 있어 궁극적으로 최종 결과물을 개선할 수 있습니다.

발표자는 청중에게 게임이 출시되면 게임을 확인하고 Steam에서 위시리스트에 올리는 것을 고려하도록 권장합니다.