This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 18, August 2025

I made an exploration game, Tall Trails, and released it recently on Steam.

As the part-time, sole developer of a big game (with help from Dylan Payne on music, Francesca Carletto-Leon with QA, and Greg Wohlwend on the logo), it was very important to me to keep scope as small as possible.

One of the ways I reduced the scope was by accepting the rough edges of the game. I kept certain aspects of the game lo-fi. I did my best to create something “charmingly crude.” This aligns nicely with the limits of my artistic abilities 😉

So, I wanted to catalogue a list of some of the silly, not fully polished things that shipped in the game that no one has complained about so far!

No one complained about these 2-D guys

Most of the quest-givers in Tall Trails are these little billboard PNG dudes. I love drawing these guys.

No one complained that the game was unbalanced

Tall Trails has many items you can use for traversal, and some of them are way better than others.

At first, I attempted to balance the various items so they came out at roughly the same power level. This was unnecessary and restrictive. 

The whole idea that “balanced = good” was something I needed to learn to throw away. In order to be maximally fun, certain items needed to be more powerful than others!

Variety is da spice of life, baby.

There are certainly games where balance is a valuable thing, but not this one!

No one complained about the loading screen looking like this

No one complained about levels just “ending”

I think this worked because the edges of the level are underwater. Helps to preserve the illusion!

Things people did care about

I wanted to end on a list of things that people really DID care about. Most of these were unearthed through playtesting.

• People cared that the game felt good to play
• They cared that the story was considered and that the dialogue was funny
• They cared about novelty – for this kind of game it seems important to have a LOT of content. Something new every couple of minutes. Early playtests where the game’s content was stretched more thin went poorly
• They cared about clear tutorialization
• They cared about the systems in the game giving them leeway to express themselves

A final note on polish & marketability

Tall Trails’ launch went very well.

People had fun, the story worked, and it has so far reached a wider audience than any commercial game I’ve made before. I’m very proud of it!

However, the game didn’t “catch fire” like I had hoped it might.

After the launch, I of course can’t help but wonder: Would things have gone differently with another layer of polish? It’s possible.

A huge part of my experience as a game developer has been learning about where it’s worthwhile to invest time and energy. All I can say for sure is that I will continue to experiment – and I will cut any corner I can while still making a beautiful game!

Buy Tall Trails here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393760/Tall_Trails/