Ian Fischer

"As soon as it fired up, he'd get up and go to lunch": How Age of Empires' developers tested mission difficulty

Former Ensemble Studios designer Ian Fischer discusses the unique method studio head Tony Goodman used to test mission difficulty in the original Age of Empires: he would leave for lunch and only return if the scenario was not too difficult. This approach aimed to ensure game accessibility, a principle Fischer has carried to his later work, though he cautions against making games too vanilla.