Abandonment Issues: Why 99% just isn’t good enough

15:25, Room 3

Kevin Beimers

18 months ago, armed with a large sack of development funding, Italic Pig set out to create the perfect touchscreen platformer. The theory was solid, the mechanics were sound, the tests were encouraging, the feedback was electrifying … but ultimately, the platformer had to be sidelined. Why? Because players demand perfection as a baseline. If it works 99% of the time, that means it doesn’t work 1% of the time, which means … it’s broken.

Kevin Beimers, creator of Mona Lisa and Schrodinger’s Cat: Raiders of the Lost Quark, talks about his quest for the Holy Grail of Jump Mechanics, including Mona Lisa’s Evil Twin, Xeno’s Paradox of Perfection, the You Know What I Meant factor, the other 99 problems he ran into on the way to the Louvre … and why he’s not sad about it.