3. Asset creation consumed far more time than we anticipated.

The tile-based system we devised called for artists to create three tiles for each square of gameplay. While this wasn't three-times the overall amount of art we would have created for other side-scrollers, it was a considerable art hit and technical challenge. We were fortunate to have a great environmental artist with excellent tech problem-solving skills.

Working with the programmers, he devised a system for implementing the tiled elements within the memory constraints in a way that kept them from looking tiled. He also created a first pass on all of the tiles. However, the chore was immense, stressful, and is not anticipated to be repeated.

Because the environmental art demands were far more than we anticipated, we had to add two additional artists to the backgrounds from alpha till the end. Taking the placeholder tiles created by the initial artist, they shaped them up and extended the blurring effect between the tiles to occlude any checkerboard effect.

The result, as noted above, was good, since the worlds looked good. The commitment from these artists was Herculean and not something we will or could repeat. Having committed ourselves to the fully destructible world, however, we had no choice but to add more staff and impact our budget.

4. Indecision over control configuration delayed production.

Our lead designer devised an innovative control scheme for Hulk. Rather than single button presses for Hulk's primary actions, punch and jump, he prototyped in GameMaker (and later implemented on the DS) a two-part system that used the X button as an amplifier for the punch and jump buttons.

We called it the Rage button, since it gave Hulk a surge of energy which amped his jump into a super one, and upgraded his punch into a doubly destructive blow. Our designer, the primary champion for the control scheme, felt this particular setup helped connect the user to Hulk's actions.

While understanding our intentions, our publisher had reservations with the Rage mechanic. Our publisher preferred that every player, even the youngest, have the ability to make Hulk as cool as possible. Accessibility is, as we all know, an important selling point.

We spent numerous calls and visits with the client deliberating the Rage button's merits and ferreting interpretations out of user tests.

After protracted debate (including internal debate), we peacefully concurred and removed the two-button combo to trigger Rage effects.

However, the debate over this feature unnecessarily affected several cycles, as well as the project's overall timeline.

The publisher's job is to know what will appeal to the broadest base of consumers, and while being too passive and "rolling over" to any suggestion is a recipe for gameplay disaster, so is a developer being too inflexible or too precious about their own design.

In hindsight, we should have resolved the debate much earlier by simply removing the Rage button and moving on. Once the decision to remove the Rage button was made, the issue was buried and our progress proved unhampered.

Conclusion

Ultimately, though the fully destructible environment was not as big a selling point as we had hoped, we are very pleased with Incredible Hulk for the Nintendo DS. Our team overcame some daunting challenges and learned many lessons that they have taken with them to their new projects.

Though we had some conflicts with the publisher, they were never highly contentious or irresolvable. In addition, our relationship improved greatly over the last several development cycles and in testing.

We finished our game on time and on a positive note. All things considered, the game has been received well by the public and seems to have many fans. Most importantly, however, the game is fun to play.