How I decide which feature to cut (notes from building Tingbase)
Every project I've shipped or tried to ship hits the same point: something has to go, and it's usually a thing I enjoyed building. I'm making Tingbase in Unity 6 and C#. It's a 3v3 hero shooter where you swap between Tank, DPS and Healer. The core sentence for it is short: pick a role, enter a match, play until it ends. Anything that doesn't serve that sentence is a candidate for the cut. The one…
When building a game like Tingbase, which is a 3v3 hero shooter in Unity 6 and C#, there comes a point where something must be removed from the project. This usually involves features that the developer enjoyed building but ultimately do not serve the core gameplay loop - pick a role, enter a match, and play until it ends. To determine which feature to cut, the developer asks: "If this feature goes, what does the player actually lose?"
If the only answer is a slight increase in depth or variety, the feature is not essential and can be set aside for later.
The follow-up question is: "Would a player even notice this was missing if I never told them?" If the answer is no, then the absence is only on the developer's conscience, not the player's. It's crucial to remember that players care about what was promised, not what was imagined. Another important consideration is the real cost of each feature.
Visible tasks like code, content, UI, sound, testing, integration with other systems, and even the second iteration of the feature are just a small portion of the total cost. When the developer makes a list of all these factors, cut features often stand out.
Two approaches have proven effective on real teams: setting a short, timed window for the feature with clear conditions, and then removing it if it fails to meet those conditions, or simply cutting it if the time box would cost more than it saves. The one-sentence summary of the decision to cut the feature helps everyone involved understand the decision.
For solo developers, the person most attached to the feature is themselves, so honesty is key. Turning off the feature, testing it, and asking if anything feels missing is a good way to gauge its importance. Writing down the decision rather than simply deleting the note helps prevent reopening the argument later.
The developer shares additional production notes and decision tables on their website, offering further guidance on cutting features.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
