And so, the developers of Fez announced that they won't fix a bug that corrupts save game files. Bugs are expected for software, though we tend to be less tolerant of them for video games. Glitches in saving your game are the worst, with hours of play time investment lost, and for most consoles, lost forever, destroying your sense of progress and accomplishment.
Saving a game state has issues similar to what computer scientists faced with databases for that past few decades. The issues are well known, and they were solved before I was born. And yet, in the world of video game development, the available APIs are so limited that often you have to reinvent the wheel for just about anything, including saving some data on a storage device. Core Data for iOS is a marvel of technology compared to the barren lands or the XBox, PSN or Wii APIs.
There's just no excuse anymore to make a game that has unpredictable save game glitches like in Fez. I was about to rant out about how the 3 form of database integrity (physical, structural and logical) applies to video game save files, but that would be pointless. By his hipster attitude and the attention he's getting from "Indie Game: The Movie", he's giving himself the allure of a talented software developer. Kind of stupid to shit over your publisher, future customers and current customers in one blog post. Phil, you're no Carmack or Notch). So, as a fellow Montrealer, code or STFU.
Published on July 19, 2012 at 21:22 EDT
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