Well i'm fed up. :( my game is about to fail for the 3rd time.

Not only do i feel like and idiot, I would like to say sorry for wasting all the reviews times. I know how annoying it is to review games and find bug after bug.

I know that the bugs were obscure but i would still like to say sorry.

I only bit i'm going to rant on about is how the same bugs were in all version.

First time my game got to 92% before faileing. Next time 25% and this time 50% the same bugs were in all version and even in the playtest verion and every one missed them. Anyway enough of my rant.

Also for all people who are about to reivew your game make sure that you <= playerindex.four so as to capture the fourth pad as there has been about 5 games that have failed for this reason.

Sorry once again.

Hey mate,

I know how you feel. I've been there too and felt the same way. You've just got to stick it out and you will get though. I also tripped up on a few issues that caught me off guard (now on submission 4 too!). I too felt pretty stupid with my fails.

All I can say is that there's lots of fellow devs been though the same rollercoaster and I bet everyone sympathizes with each other.

On another note, I was thinking of putting together an 'Epic Win' checklist for devs that would help avoid common failures. I think the evil list helps, but it's not too specific about the 'fringe' test cases I see a lot of devs failing on. E.g. your  <= IndexFour. Most of these are really easy to fix if you have the specific fail examples. 

Don’t give up. Take it easy,
Steve

Nice to know i'm not alone :)

I do agree with you it would be helpfull with a common failures topic.

The Riddler 24:

First time my game got to 92% before faileing. Next time 25% and this time 50% the same bugs were in all version and even in the playtest verion and every one missed them. Anyway enough of my rant.

Keep in mind that you missed them, too. I realize you're apologizing and I don't want to be harsh on you, but you (and everyone else) cannot expect playtesting and peer review to be your QA. You have an obligation to run tests on your own. If something doesn't get caught in playtesting, it's just as much your fault as the playtesters.

Nick Gravelyn:

The Riddler 24:

First time my game got to 92% before faileing. Next time 25% and this time 50% the same bugs were in all version and even in the playtest verion and every one missed them. Anyway enough of my rant.

Keep in mind that you missed them, too. I realize you're apologizing and I don't want to be harsh on you, but you (and everyone else) cannot expect playtesting and peer review to be your QA. You have an obligation to run tests on your own. If something doesn't get caught in playtesting, it's just as much your fault as the playtesters.

O i realize that i'm more annoyed with my self than anyone one else.
I just cant understand how the first submission (ie the worst one) nealy pass.

The Riddler 24:

I just cant understand how the first submission (ie the worst one) nealy pass.

Because there are a lot of reviewers that don't fully review games. :(

The Riddler 24:

Well i'm fed up. :( my game is about to fail for the 3rd time.

Not only do i feel like and idiot, I would like to say sorry for wasting all the reviews times. I know how annoying it is to review games and find bug after bug.

I know that the bugs were obscure but i would still like to say sorry.

I only bit i'm going to rant on about is how the same bugs were in all version.

First time my game got to 92% before faileing. Next time 25% and this time 50% the same bugs were in all version and even in the playtest verion and every one missed them. Anyway enough of my rant.

Also for all people who are about to reivew your game make sure that you <= playerindex.four so as to capture the fourth pad as there has been about 5 games that have failed for this reason.

Sorry once again.

Don't beat yourself up too much.  Writing error-free code is hard (even writing mostly error-free code is hard).  Thorough testing and debugging is harder.

Brian Kernighan said it well:

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

On your next project, keep the code as simple as possible - if it starts to get tangled, look for ways to clean it up.  Using a habitual coding style (any style - just be consistent) helps with this.   Look out for common errors.  The < instead of <= is a classic off-by-one error, you always have to watch for this one no matter how good you are.

On your current project, change the code as little as possible.  Test as throughly as you can - every screen, every control, normal mode, trial mode, different account types.  Try to touch everything at least once.  Try to get in the mindset that you *know* there are bugs - you just have to find them.  When you do find them, fix them with the smallest change that does the job - you want to stabilize code and avoid ripple effects.

It's a hard problem.  Everyone has trouble with it.  Good luck!

I've been through that too, and it is not fun. Although, you should take into consideration the frustration your customers will get if the bug went live on Xbox Live. There is always a saying that nobody complains about a game being delayed if it is really good, but everyone complains about a on-time buggy game.

Also be sure to not stress yourself out when getting a fail, take a day or two break from it. Trying to fix a bug when you are all emotional/hurried about it only makes it worse.

Eventually you will get the game out! :)

Good luck

Don't let it get to you.  A few hours ago I voluntarily pulled my version 1.1 update to The Adhara War from Peer Review because of an obscure but potentially fatal bug that crept in (as the result of one missing line of code : tutorial = false) when I wrote the oft-requested Tutorial for it.  I've been holding off on pursuing any serious marketing for TAW until v1.1 is available as it is in many ways a substantial improvement to the game.  This is frustrating, of course, but I pulled it from Review out of concern that, since the bug will only manifest under a specific set of circumstances, it might have actually gotten approved that way.
As some of the others have mentioned in this thread, it is ultimately a good thing to fail out rather than release a game that doesn't function as expected both by you and by the consumer.  It would doom any chance of success for that game, as those flaws would quickly become fodder for public review (game sites, etc.), and damage your credibility as a developer (which could negatively impact the success of future endeavors as well).
It seems that, for the most part (and there are a few notable exceptions to this), XBox Live Indie Games are not taken very seriously by the majority of XBox Live players, which on the one hand makes sense but on the other is terribly unfortunate for all of us.  Most of us, myself included, are amateurs, hobbyists, etc. and so "practice makes perfect" has never been a more true statement.  However, it is a great learning experience and you can rest assured that A) when your game does finally pass Review, it will be a product of higher quality and B) your next project will be of higher quality from the word "go".
My greatest advice to you is to test your own game "ad nauseam" (to the point where you are sick of it).  Play it until you hate it!  I logged probably more than 100 hours testing The Adhara War, and rooted out 99.9% of the technical defects before it was submitted even to Playtest.  While not everyone was fond of the gameplay, it passed Review easily enough.  I should have done the same with the v1.1 update -- I did not, and as a consequence I must now wait to resubmit.
Sorry for soapboxing, folks.  I had to get that out of my system, and now I feel much better.  ;)

Samuel H. Potter
"Darkeil"

I learned something from my failures, so I will share them with everyone.

I feel your pain... a really obscure bug killed my first peer review attempt too at about 75%. That sucked... and really put be back two weeks on the release (one week purgitory, one week to get back near 75%).

A good thing to do with each release is to go through every item of the evil checklist yourself... a large number of failures are found just by walking through this list.

There are some people here I sence really try their hardest to find a bug in your game, trying many things that no normal user would ever try. Many reviewers seem to do a more basic job of playing the game for a while and making sure that it doesn't blowup during the normal game flow.

Well its nice to know im not the only one who feels like this. I agree with every one and im happy in know that when my game (hopfully soon) gets approved it will be of a high standered. Its nice to see the the standered has got higer since my first game. Hope every one gets the games up soon. Thanks for you support. :)

Actually it only gets worse as you get better. Later games will have much harder to find bugs that someone will find late in the process. No matter how much Play Test and Reviewing it gets, it still happens. It is just part of making games and though it is always depressing and sometimes frustrating it will be worth when it finally makes it through.

Patrick

It also tends to strike you when you least expect it. I thought Neo Terra was pretty well tested, but alas I was indeed proven wrong at the 75% mark, just like Star Gaming Network said, the closer you get to 100% the more people try out edge cases as people before them tend to have tested the main cases.

I'm also a tester as my main job, and I do tend to go the extra mile to find edge cases when I know products have been "heavily" tested. Because the principal tester becomes too familiar with the features that he essentially becomes a "dev" and loses a bit of testing objectivity.

I also take the opportunity to make the game better inbetween the waiting period. Although be careful of introducing new bugs when enhancing current features or adding new ones

Just my two cents..