[ziddoap]

>It’s now been over a year since launch and I am still playing Balatro almost daily. I play a couple runs before I go to bed

I think this is really important, especially for games. Play the game you make!

There's a fair number of games that I've played where the developer clearly has not sat down and played through the game as a player would. No skips, no custom developer-only starts or features, no rushing through sections "because I know what happens", etc. To be fair, though, these are often below $5 games on Steam, so I'm sure a chunk of them are cash grabs rather than an honest attempt at making a successful game.

[svelle]

The story of the Hotline Miami 2 devs comes to mind where they mentioned that they play tested the game at half speed a lot of the times, which, including many other factors, contributes to the game being way harder than the first part.

See: https://youtu.be/IcgmmBEEHsk?t=1427

[ksynwa]

Reminds me of Miyazaki from FromSoft who said he doesn't play his own games.

[Trasmatta]

No, he said he doesn't play them AFTER they release. But he plays them constantly when they're in development. One of the difficulty rules at FromSoft is that each boss and area has to be beatable by Miyazaki (which he said is a good baseline, because he likes challenge but doesn't consider himself good at games).

[bigstrat2003]

I wonder who he does consider good at games. FromSoft games are so hard that Dark Souls is a synonym for "really hard game". If someone can beat one of those games, I think it's fair to say they are good at games.

[runevault]

My understanding is he uses AI summons/etc so he's not one of the git gud crowd who believes if you don't beat it straight you suck.

[ksynwa]

I checked and you are right. Thanks for the correction.

[Waterluvian]

It would be truly impressive if he was able to direct the development of Souls games into what they are without actually playing them.

[ekianjo]

He would not be able to beat the first boss probably

[monadINtop]

He's beaten nameless king, pre-nerf radahn, melania etc.