Comments on: The 6 Reasons Your Game Development Tools Suck

By: Paul Evans

Paul Evans — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:59:48 +0000

Great article

By: Reason 1 of 6 – Design As You Go « The Toolsmiths

Reason 1 of 6 – Design As You Go « The Toolsmiths — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:38:10 +0000

[...] Programming and Tool Design This ongoing series delves more deeply into each of the “six reasons your game development tools suck” as argued in my very first [...]

By: The Problem With Ad-Hoc Tools Teams « The Toolsmiths

The Problem With Ad-Hoc Tools Teams « The Toolsmiths — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:19:12 +0000

[...] tools teams cause many problems, which, in some cases, form the groundwork for the 6 reasons Dan posted earlier. So, how does this happen, and what problems does it [...]

By: Erik

Erik — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:50:23 +0000

I would add a 7th reason (though it arguably could come in under number 4).

7. Not enough dogfooding
Often, the people who develop the tools don’t actually use them. This can lead to a number of problems, including an overly complex interface and a host of usability issues.

Overall remember that doing cool stuff should be easy, and doing wrong things should be hard. The people using these tools are making your game cool. They should spend time adding cool, not wrestling with adding cool.

By: Jeff Ward

Jeff Ward — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:46:42 +0000

I think a lot of this stems from a “one off” approach to tools development. Many programmers make what they think will be a tool just to make their own lives easier and one of two things happens: 1) It’s useful and others start to use it when it’s really not ready, or 2) Other programmers rework the problem because they don’t know the tool exists.

I’ve got a post about this brewing, so you’ll see my full thoughts in the future.

By: Reavenk

Reavenk — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:56:28 +0000

I’m working on in-house software that’s not being used for games – and sadly, we still stuffer from all of these afflictions (except #2). I can definitly relate to this article.

By: James Munro

James Munro — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:59:50 +0000

These are interesting points. I’m completing the final year of my games programming degree and I am interested on working as a tools designer/developer in the games industry, I will certainly take note of this advice.

By: Anthony Brien

Anthony Brien — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:49:03 +0000

Oh, I’m gonna like this new site Great post!

I agree with everything. From my experience, tools programmer are usually only given time to design the tools in the first months of a project. Afterwards, we only have time to fix/patch the tools. Then when the next project comes along (using the same pipeline and tools), the patching has embedded itself so deep in the code, its often easier to start over from scratch.