Feature: 'GDCE: Postmortem - SCEE's WipEout Pure'

In one of today's main Gamasutra features, with the recent launch of the PSP in Europe, last week at GDC Europe, SCEE's Dave Burrows and Martin Linklater delivered this postmortem on PSP launch title WipEout Pure. Iain Simons notes, in his write-up of the GDCE session, some of the main themes: "Much of the story of WipEout Pure is about coping with the absence of finished hardware. Preproduction began on the game in August 2003 with just two staff members, production beginning proper in October of that year. It wasn't until a year later, in August 2004 that the team actually received development kits. Finally, in November 2004 they finally received the browser which forms a core element of the download functionality of the PSP. By launch, the team had grown to twenty... One of the core needs for the WipEout Pure developers were that they needed to get to a point in development where they could actually play the game as soon as possible. "We needed the dynamics, user interface, A.I. and core elements first so we can get in and test. Not in a finished state, but in a state that is at least basically playable", they commented as part of the lecture. This methodology spilt through into the development iterations, which became based around six-week cycles. "If you're going to do weapons, instead of spending six weeks on just the bombs and getting them perfect, we spent three days on each weapon to get them all working at least in a fashion - and then go back over them." Dave's Powerpoint slides illustrated this approach perfectly - 'Don't care about graphics! Do care about processes!'" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).