…discovering that your four-year-old is an excellent beta tester.

Jewel loves my current game-in-progress Planitia. It’s her favorite game. But she doesn’t call it Planitia, she calls it “Volcano”. “Daddy, I want to play Volcano!” And of course, if she ever sees me working on it, I lose 15 minutes while she piddles with the latest build.

She loves watching the little people run around and she loves flattening the terrain out (which she calls “cleaning up”). But she really, really loves throwing volcanoes around. And then cleaning up after them. And then throwing down another one.

Needless to say, since she has no idea how the game is supposed to be played, she’s constantly finding bugs I’d have never thought to look for.

The development of Planitia has been fraught with frustration and delays, but it really makes her happy, so I guess I can consider it a success!