process - Polishing your game: how much is enough?

I'm assuming you're an indie developer, doing your own (or getting free/partner-based) artwork. I'm also assuming you have no external pressure driving you forward into new games; you can work on your games as much (or as little) as you want, then move on.

Having said all that, how do you decide how much polish to put in a game?

I'm also assuming you won't fall into the notorious trap of dumping your game half (or less) finished; that you have the discpline to work on it until it's "good (enough)."

I currently have a rough cycle where I develop the core functionality, then content/levels/whatever, then add layers of polish (art, bug-fixes, and usability tweaks) until I get bored. There's always scope to improve, but I don't have a measuring stick telling me that "at this point, your return on polishing is not worth the time/effort you're putting into it."

I'm going to assume this is always worth it if you learn something new (like how to render a glow effect, say).

Also, before you ask, I don't have much of a player base (and not one I can observe, either) to ask them when it's good enough.

Answer

I'm going to assume this is always worth it if you learn something new (like how to render a glow effect, say).

That's a poor assumption. Indeed, I would even say that this assumption suggests that your general idea of "polish" isn't necessarily polishing anything important.

"Polish" is not adding glow. "Polish" would be adding glow to something such that it makes the game better in some material way. Does that object need to glow? How does that glowing fit into your overall visual design aesthetic? Do other objects need to glow in order to make the entire presentation more coherent?

Gratuitous effects are gratuitous. As are gratuitous AIs, gratuitous levels, gratuitous enemies, gratuitous areas, etc.

In a well-designed and well-polished game, every element exists for a purpose. Putting more "stuff" in a game does not make it more polished. Making the game a coherent, cohesive work is what makes it more polished.

This will generally involve doing boring stuff. Making a UI that looks like it belongs in that kind of game. Making sure that all your UI elements have a consistent look and feel. Making sure that your UI screens all make sense and have consistency and logic to them. Ensuring that enemies and other objects of interest are visible and noticeable, popping out of the background. Ensuring that the player's play experience through the game is smooth; the game doesn't get too difficult too early, and it doesn't get too easy later on.

Polish is all of those little things that you know you need to do, but take a long time and in many cases aren't very interesting. And they're certainly not why you started making the game in the first place.

Yet these are what makes a good idea into a great game. And these things are not easy to do. They require a lot of grunt work.

The only real way to know how much is enough is to give the game to other people and let them play it, then see how they react. Ask them if there is anything that feels missing from the experience, or if they ran into trouble, or anything of that nature.