Too much chocolate

The thing about working at a games development company is that it is all fun and games - literally. We work on games. We think about games. We talk about games. At lunch, occasionally we even play games.

Sounds like fun, and it is. However there are times when it’s a little bit too much of a good thing. And one of those times is now.

Whenever a game is set for release, it has to go through an extensive quality and assurance regime so when you buy a copy of the thing, when you get it home you’ll be able to play it uninterrupted by crashes, glitches or booboo’s. I would bore you with the gory details of what all that entails, but it basically breaks down to these two simple rules:

Play the game.

A lot.

Now, I like playing Sudoku. I would even say on a Sunday morning watching Meet the Press with a Sudoku puzzle in front of me is one of my favorite weekly rituals.

But when you are involved in the QA process of a Sudoku game, like we all are presently, I suspect the guy who originally came up with the Sudoku game concept back in 1979, a feller named Howard Garns, would say, “No more! I beg you, just a little chess. Please!”

And it’s not just about those of us who work here at ZAPiT Games either. You should try living with us. We’re so busy doing on our own things during working hours, that the QA process tends to get shoved to home time. That means when a game is set for release, connubial bliss is strained to the max by almost endless playing of the game in an attempt to break it. No where in my wedding vows was, "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for playing games eight hours a night, for seemingly weeks on end..."

And that heavy-duty call to game playing arms stretches to the extended family and friends as well.

Me: “Hey, you guys busy on Saturday night? How about a BBQ?”

So called friends: “Nice try. We know you have a new game coming out. We’re not going through that again!”

Slackers.

The plus side of course is, we will all end up being pretty much Sudoku gods when all this is over, and when you get your copy hopefully we’ll have caught everything.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get my wife Leslie out of the bathroom. For some reason she’s been in there for hours!