Polish, I’m sure it’s something you’ve all heard of before, but what does it actually mean?

Most people have their own definitions, but I’ll give you mine.

Polish has very little to do with art in the game, it revolves more around effects that enhance the game play, how the game is balanced, and all the little extras that can possibly be added to the game. Let’s get to dissecting these!

Effects:

There are millions of effects you can add into a game, there’s no possible way I could list them all out here so I’ll focus on ones I use often or have used recently. (In no particular order)

Parallax Backgrounds(Different Layers of the background are moving at different speeds)
Items on the screen that do nothing but add aesthetics to (Clouds, Bubbles, Etc..)
Particle effects added where needed
Transitions between different screens (Fading In/Out, Coming in from the bottom of the screen)
When a screen displaying how much score/money you earned after a certain time period have it start and 0 then rise up until it gets to the actual number
Sound effects when an event happens
Background Music
Button Hover Effects
Tremors
Glowing Items
Font Choice
Health Bars
Game talking to you
Red Flashing Effect when you get hit by an enemy
Enemies flashing white when you hit them with something
Blood spouting from an enemy when hit
Death Animations
Explosions when appropriate
Displaying How many points you earned on the screen (+10 showing up somewhere when you kill an enemy, or the words “Headshot” appearing when you get a headshot)
Indicators telling you what enemy is about to come
Don’t leave any ugly solid color backgrounds, change them to stylish gradients
Instructions being displayed at the beginning of the game
User Interface being readable and using more than just plain numbers (Gauges, Bars, Etc..)
Item Descriptions and upgrade graphics
Simple and intuitive to navigate through the game.
Pause Button, Mute Button, Quality Button
Logical Controls
Changing from Day to Night

These are the ones I could think of off the top of my head, but trust me, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many more. Effects alone are very often the difference between a mediocre game and an amazing game so never decide that they’re a waste of time or not important enough. I plan on coming back and editing this post with new “Effects” as more come to mind, so come back to this post in the future. If you can think of any common ones please post them in the comments so I can add them to the list.

Balance:

Balance, this can often be very tough, but it is necessary if you want to be able to consider your game polished. For a game to be balanced, there needs to be a game play curve. New players need to be able to pickup your game very easily and get right into it. If they’re not having fun, or don’t understand what to do immediately you have failed. During this time you should introduce new game play mechanics. After this phase is over there should be a moderate challenge to keep the game interesting, but not too hard that it frustrates players that are still getting involved in the game.

At this point players should have invested a large amount of work into the game and want to complete it no matter what. You should now use this time to challenge all of the players skill they have acquired throughout the duration of their game play. This part should be very hard for players, but again, not pointlessly annoying. You should avoid making any part of the game too long or too short as this will lead to boredom and or disappointment. That’s about all I have to say about balance, this varies a lot depending on the type of game.

Extras:

Last, but not least, are extras. These are things such as Achievements, Cheat Menus, Bestiaries, Special Modes, Level Editor, etc… These are things that can really make your game stand out from the crowd. Adding these things gives an extra dimension to your games, it can turn a 5 minute game into something that you spend hours and hours on (Endless Migration, and Amorphous Plus are great examples of this). If implemented correctly your player will become deeply involved trying to experience everything you’ve placed in the game.

Conclusion:

If there’s something you could add to your game that will make it slightly better, you should. You can do polish incorrectly, but you can NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH POLISH. These things will quickly add up and make your game really separate itself from the bunch. Graphics, of course, help with a game, but they simply do not compare when it comes to the effect polish will have. A well polished game will most likely score better than a game with art from Picasso.

Now go polish your games!

The Experiment Part 3 is still coming, there has been a delay due to the programmer for the website being slow. In the meantime I have managed to develop several more games, I should have around 5 large game ready for the initial release