[TRENCHES] Thursday, September 12, 2013 - Concept Art - Cora

Geth

Concept Art - Cora
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/concept-art-cora

Domino Effect

Anonymous

A number of years ago, I worked as a tester on a board game compilation for the a console. The publisher’s office was very small with only two permanent employees, the CEO and COO. Because it was such a small company, I was the person testing the game full-time in the office. The game’s developer was located across the Atlantic in Britain.

The board games in the compilation were a mixed bunch. Some were fairly complex, some were absurd in their simplicity, but testing proceeded as normal, and after I spent close to two months testing the game, it was submitted to the console maker’s certification department in the U.S. The game failed certification not because of crashes, or data corruption, or an inability to handle catastrophic errors of any sort. No, the reason was actually much more serious than that.

The game couldn’t play Dominoes correctly.

What none of us knew, not being particular Dominoes enthusiasts, is that the game has very different rule sets depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on. The developers, being British, had built the game using the British rules. As it turns out, the certification department we were dealing with had a Dominoes fiend on its staff that wasn’t having any of that and wouldn’t allow certification until the game was altered to use U.S. rules.

Which was fine. Except that the guy that had programmed Dominoes was on vacation when the game was kicked back at us.. Sigh.

Casual

are those tribbles?

zepherin

Casual wrote: »

are those tribbles?

Are those tribbles something you have trouble with?

Skiddles

So wait...

"You're not using the american rules for dominoes so we aren't certifying your game" actually happened?

That sounds...really arbitrary and dumb, and not something that should ever happen. :-/

marsilies

I like the sketches today, they look like if Cora showed up in Phuzzy Comics.

What I found disturbing about the tale was the idea that the developer couldn't fix the game because the programmer of one of the mini games was on vacation. Really, nobody else could've stepped into the code to fix it? What if that programmer had died; would it have severely delayed the game, or even caused it to be cancelled? It sounds like this game had a really low bus factor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

EggyToast

Is this the first time we've seen Cora move her arms?

wormspeaker

marsilies wrote: »

What I found disturbing about the tale was the idea that the developer couldn't fix the game because the programmer of one of the mini games was on vacation.

This is an easy fix:

Change this --> strGameName = "Dominoes"
To this --> strGameName = "Dominoes (British Rules)"

twesterm

...I don't think certification generally checks for things like that...

Scunosi

El Skid wrote: »

So wait...

"You're not using the american rules for dominoes so we aren't certifying your game" actually happened?

That sounds...really arbitrary and dumb, and not something that should ever happen. :-/

I'm not sure how that's arbitrary. They were looking to sell the game in America as well as other countries, you'd think they'd want half their playerbase to be able to actually play one of the games. If they didn't change it, you'd end up with people calling in to complain that their game is wrong or glitchy, not understanding the rules difference. Though I definitely hope they kept both and just gave players the option to choose their ruleset.

This was a sort of "cute" story though. As much as I like the scathing ones about big companies, it's nice to read something more simple and slapstick once in a while.

Positronics

There's something incredibly charming and cute in the way that Monica draws Cora.

miaAusa

let me tell you about the trouble with tribbles!

'Spock: One million, seven hundred seventy-one thousand, five hundred sixty-one. That's assuming one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of ten, producing a new generation every twelve hours over a period of three days' - 'Trouble with Tribbles' The original Star Trek

Ori Klein

El Skid wrote: »

So wait...

"You're not using the american rules for dominoes so we aren't certifying your game" actually happened?

That sounds...really arbitrary and dumb, and not something that should ever happen. :-/

Have you met Microsoft Xbox Certification?