barely fatal

“Okay guys, Assassin’s Creed is going to have 12 levels … err assassinations, three in each city and three in the kingdom, the sizeable country side which connects the cities. We’re going to start working on the cities, those are the most exciting and difficult parts.”

Three years later …

“Well, we have the cities, all story elements are in. We have the combat system finished, we have the physics, stunning graphics, and great sound. Alright, the missions turn out to be somewhat repetitive, we have to think of a few new investigation methods. The kingdom part is fleshed out, we have beautiful lakes, mountains, villages and a lot of AI. But we have only two months left and so far we don’t have any of the three planned missions in the kingdom yet.”

“Ok, we can either polish the game, or we can add more mechanics like the investigation types you mentioned, or we can build a few half-baked assassination scenarios in the kingdom, but we won’t be able to script and test them properly before the release.”

“Nah, we still have too many defects, we have to polish the controls and play test the game! We can still add new investigation types in the PC version later, that will silence the nerds. And we can’t put in poorly-scripted story missions to a game that is already somewhat repetitive, even when it’s great fun to play. We already have nine missions, that’s good enough! Granted, the kingdom will seem dull and empty, but there’s still all the scenery! Add a few templars and flags to pick up and lets focus on a stable release!”

…

This is what I believe that happened at Ubisoft when they developed Assassin’s Creed. Of course that’s all speculation from my side, but that’s what it feels like – and from my experience, software development oftentimes goes exactly like that. They made the right decision, hard as it might have been.

Now, they must have overlooked the “how to quit the game” issue… Did you know that to quit the game you have to:

• Exit the Animus (the “meta game” in the game)
  >> A level is loaded, and a slowish animation is played while your character exits the machine
• Exit the game
  >> The menu is loaded which brings to the profile selection screen
• Select your profile
  >> You are taken to the main menu
• Exit the game once more …
  >> … and you’re finally back on Windows

The only other option? ALT+F4, but who wants to risk his save game.