Tips for closing a game project

As we have seen, in an ideal world, the closing phase of a game project should take more time than the sum of each of the previous stages. But that’s unlikely to happen in reality—on the contrary, you’ll probably find yourself with much less time than expected to wrap everything up.

Here is a list of tips and practices to avoid sacrificing polishing, proper user testing, and, in the worst cases, procrastinating a game’s release:

• Review the game concept and game design pillars: Cut anything that does not reflect them. The sooner this review is done, the better it is, but do not be afraid to cut a feature that appears to contrast with the original concept, even if it has been partially or fully developed.
• Have a UX review: Let a professional UX researcher study your game. A UX review will provide you with extremely useful insights and a lot of actionable points to improve the quality of your game.
• Get the...