Thread by @charlesrandall, so we're all ready to ship the game, first submission goes pretty [...]

so we're all ready to ship the game, first submission goes pretty well, and then

The News

The CEO's kid played the game and said it was boring and there was nothing to do in the game

so my lead comes to me and he says "so, we have to add a bunch of side activities into the game. we have a plan from patrice, but I'm not going to say yes unless you are in."

I tell him to give me some time to think about it, and I go crank my music and have a nap at my desk

oh yeah I forgot the key part. he says "we have to put all these side missions into the game in five days, and they have to be bug free, because the build is going to be burned directly to disc and released to retail."

So anyway about an album later I lift my head and see him sitting there staring at me, just waiting for me to give him an answer.

I say "Yes. But I have conditions."

He says: "Anything"

So that's how myself and... 4? or 5? other people ended up in the main conference building of montreal's peck building, which is normally only accessible with a special door card. and it was only us who had access. no one else was allowed in. We had all our computers moved there.

Anyway, the rest of it is a blur, but I know that it went super well, because we did it. We managed to implement all of it in 5 days.

And it was bug free... almost

If any of you poor folks ever tried to get the full 1000 gamer points on Assassin's Creed, you'd know there was one bug where sometimes you could never complete all the templar assassinations, and you'd have to restart your game to try again.

I will now explain that bug.

So it turns out one of the templar were parented to the wrong sector. If you approached the templar from the wrong direction, he fell through the world and was despawned. Which didn't give you credit for the kill, but stored him into the savegame as dead. No more spawning.

So yeah, if you had to play AC multiple times to get your max gamerscore or whatever, sorry. But I literally don't remember what happened in that period of five days.

But I know it's a miracle that the game didn't just melt your console or whatever.

(oh yeah and the double assassin spawning bug if you had two controllers plugged in was probably my fault. You're welcome.)

(addendum, I really don't remember a god damn thing about being in that room. for all I know I died in there and this is hell. or purgatory. I don't remember entering it or leaving it. I know I was in it)

in retrospect I should have just asked for lots of money instead of a temporary sealed room that I may not have actually escaped

addendum: a lot of people seem to be taking this the wrong way.
1. What we added to the game was good and necessary.
2. The entire process was voluntary on the part of all the people in the room.
3. AC1 remains the easiest game I've ever shipped, with the least OT.

Also, it wasn't just me. The others in the room that I can remember 13 years later were Chris Weiler, Phil Michaud, and Sacha Viltofsky.

AC was a wild ride and changed my career completely and pretty much every memory I have of it is a fond one.

Also, because it probably needs to be said now that people with questionable reading abilities are writing articles:

1. I don't actually know that the reason we did it was because of a kid, I only know what I was told. It may have been an offhand comment said out of frustration

2. I literally don't even know if the CEO had a kid at the time, or what the kid's age was, or if they were even a kid. I didn't bother trying to find out because the whole situation was hilarious.

3. We created no new art for the additions, we had to use what was there. Flags were already in the game, templars were already a thing. We just added some conditional spawns and attached gameplay.

4. Last minute changes to make a game better are totally normal and not unexpected and any game developer will confirm this. Everyone has a "second submission" story of some sort. The only reason this is notable is because I shared a funny story.

You share a 13 year old story and yet people can't even be respectful enough to treat it as the entertaining anecdote that it is.

This is why developers don't share stories online.

BTW I am deleting all emails from press so don't bother.

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