If a three-year-old exits your app, that's the whole code review.

I hand a build to a kid on my phone and watch. If she puts it down, I have my answer. The game can work perfectly and still give her no reason to keep playing.

There is no meeting after that. She doesn't veto features or give me notes. I watch for confusion, or I watch her exit, and then I have work to do.

I make games with and for my three daughters, Sarah, Reagan and Tessa. I've also spent twenty years shipping software and running engineering teams. Those are useful qualifications... until a kid puts the phone down.

A plane that flew

Reagan Air Heart is a flying game named for Reagan. You fly a little plane around an open world of islands, from place to place. The first version did that. You could fly from place to place.

The kids left it. I had built the ability to go somewhere without enough reasons to go anywhere.

Watching them told me there was nothing to unlock and not enough kinds of aircraft, when unlocking craft that do different things is exactly what interests them. There weren't enough locations, either, and being able to travel only goes so far if the destinations don't give you much to look forward to. It also wasn't colorful enough, and I don't get to dismiss color because I can explain how the flying works.

What I added first was unlockable aircraft that do different things, plus more locations and wonders to fly to. Those changes followed what I learned by watching. The first version worked, but working was only the beginning of the job. Being able to fly from place to place gave them a way to move around the world, while the aircraft and destinations gave them reasons to want to do it.

No politics in the verdict

I've sat in a lot of code reviews. Adults soften things, trade favors and defer to the senior person. A review can contain all of that while still looking like a discussion about software.

A three-year-old puts the phone down. My title has no useful function at that point. Neither does the amount of time I've spent shipping software.

A kid exiting is a verdict with no politics in it.

You don't get to argue with that verdict. Explaining why the game should be interesting won't make it interesting. The next useful thing is to fix it.

That feedback loop is more honest than any review I've sat in at work. The kids don't have to make their reaction comfortable for me. I hand over the phone and watch what happens. Confusion and an immediate exit both tell me something I need to know.

The rules come first

Every roariverse game follows the same rules. No ads, ever. No accounts, and no data leaves the device. None of those things should be the price of playing a game I make for my daughters.

Nothing can go wrong: no dying, no losing, no timers, no fail state. Adding pressure to keep the kids there would be a poor answer to what I learned. Every game teaches something, even when it's disguised. Teaching still has to earn their attention.

I hand over the phone again and watch. The kid owes me neither patience nor an explanation. If she exits, that's the verdict. I get to fix it.