Game devs of all sizes and scopes respond to the question: “What is a thing in video games that seems simple but is actually extremely hard to make?” From a report: Earlier this year, game developers across the industry weighed in on Twitter on a seemingly innocuous question: What’s the problem with doors in video games? It turns out, a lot. A seemingly boring feature such as usable doors can be absolute hell for developers to put in their games for numerous reasons. Everything from physics to functionality, from AI to sound, comes into play while making a single door in a single video game work. And not just work, but work in such a way where the player never has to think about it. Building a working, forgettable door is an incredible game development undertaking. But it will probably not surprise you to learn that doors are far from the only seemingly simple feature that prove to be unexpectedly challenging in the development process.
A few months ago, I asked developers across the industry the question, “What is a thing in video games that seems simple but is actually extremely hard for game developers to make?” I received nearly 100 responses representing a wide breadth of industry experience, ranging from solo developers to those who had tackled issues within teams of hundreds. The pool of responses similarly included a number of varied problems, but also a number of similar issues popping up among many projects. Those I spoke to described challenges in making games look and sound good, storytelling, movement and interaction with objects, menus, save systems, multiplayer, and all sorts of intricacies of design that are so rarely discussed outside of studios themselves. Many noted that they’ve received angry player feedback about the topics they mentioned, with their audiences asking, “Why don’t you just do X?” The answer is, almost always: because it’s really, really hard.
So if you’ve ever wondered why the maker of your favorite game didn’t simply fix one of the myriad issues developers mentioned below, here’s why those seemingly simple problems are hardly simple at all. As the original topic of game development headaches focused on doors, it made sense that many of the developers I spoke to had issues with other methods used to connect a person from one place to another. For instance, elevators. Multiple developers told me about the frustrations of elevators, whether they’re taking players up a single floor in a building or serving as pseudo-loading screens between two major game areas. […]
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