Starting later to finish earlier
Now that we’re into production on our 4th commercial title, I’m having a lot of fun working on it. But it took far longer to reach full production than we expected, and I’ve been trying to reflect on why.
I think one of the biggest contributing factors was not taking a break between projects. Counterintuitively, we had to start later, to end up finishing earlier.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me that we don’t take enough breaks, and I’ve always shrugged it off. I’ve felt it’s easy to say that from the outside, but from the inside it feels as if we have very important reasons to never stop. Even if we take a break, or slow down, bills have to be paid. Every additional month before the next release is thousands of additional copies we need to sell if we want to have enough resources to continue making games independently.
But I am now understanding how taking a pause is not only necessary but inevitable if you want to make games with less stress, on budget and on time.
Much like a branching narrative, earlier decisions can cause larger branching than later decisions. It’s critical that the earliest decisions you make are as good as they possibly can be because they will have gigantic impacts on all the rest of the work that has to get done to finish the project.
Keeping this in mind, it’s only logical then to try to be refreshed and focussed when you’re making those decisions.
I think that is where our error lay. In forcing ourselves to make decisions, we didn’t give ourselves the time to really consider all the best options, and with that we ultimately had to slow down and reconsider earlier decisions 6 months into the project.
In the end, we were dawdling around for 3 extra months because we moved too quickly. But if we had waited those 3 months, we would’ve made a similar amount of progress and had also refilled our creative reserves. By being afraid of the cost, it cost us more.
I also have the fear that in taking too long to make early decisions, we will sink into the swamp of indecision. You can spend a lot of energy and time considering theoretical game designs, but only by implementing and testing can you really understand the game you’re making. So part of me just wants to make quick decisions, and reach a playable thing sooner.
I think with this fear I will have to try and embrace that taking a break will lead to the decisive focus required to finish. The creative well must be refilled. And if I’m worried about being too indecisive or slow, then that indicates that a pause is required.
So for the future: Even if the financial (or other) pressures gnaw at my resolve to take a break, I will now refer to here to remind myself why it’s necessary to be patient.
Joni