Action wrote an article called If you knew you would succeed, how would you go about your work? that I found to be pretty insightful.
If you knew your current project was going to be a success, would you get more passionate about it? Would you exert more effort to see it through? Would you try to complete it faster?
The point here is…if you know you’re going to succeed…why are you hesitating and slowing down progress towards your goal? You may make routine progress…but if you’re going to succeed, why not take steps to reach that success sooner and more deeply?
I’ve dedicated this Saturday to game development. The last time I did so was for Game in a Day, and it was definitely my most productive development session. I think that taking such massive action should help jumpstart progress on Oracle’s Eye. In the past I would have only a few moments of real work at a time. Now, I want to take my game development full throttle.
5 replies on “Game Development at Full Throttle”
What do you mean, if. Trichromix *is* going to be a success. 🙂 The only reason I’m not working day and night on it, is that I need money in the short term, too.
That’s the spirit! B-)
I’m with Willing on this one. I’m also in agreement with Action, though there are so many hours/days/weeks in a row one can go “Full Throttle”. I actually call it by a similar name, familiar to those who have done it — “Full Sail Final Project Mode”. The more energy you pour into it the quicker it’ll get done, but if you DIE in the process, it might be delayed a bit. Juuuuust a thought.
I agree that “Full Throttle” cannot work all the time. However, we all have instances where….we’ve had to cram for something…and because of a tight deadline….we’ve actually done higher-quality creative work.
The point here is…you can go full throttle…just not always on the same thing…and you need to give yourself a deadline. In fact, give yourself only 3 hours to code everyday…and possibly 2 hours to update plans everyday. The point here is…put a cap on activities.
Keep a list of categories that need to get done (coding, design, documentation, experimentation, etc.) and CYCLE through the list in a way where you can only get back to coding when you spend time on other aspects of development on the list.
For me, I can go full throttle on a project for 3 week. Then I need rest. That is what I did recently. I went full throttle for 3 weeks…but then needed a break from the project. Then I rested for 3 weeks…but that is kind of inefficient.
So then I tweaked the model. I went full throttle for 3 weeks….then I rested for 2 days…and went FULL THROTTLE ON ANOTHER PROJECT for 3 weeks….until I got sick of that. Now I’m working on the original project again.
This workflow model seems to work best for me.
In terms of balancing other aspects of my life…I definitely have to do that. For one thing…I work out almost every day.
Secondly, I try to merge other aspects of my life into the project work so I kill 2-3 birds with one stone.
I find this work-flow model somewhat helpful…
http://www.actiononlife.com/archives/000148.html
Later,
Action
Getting burned out is definitely not a good way to try to finish a project. You’ll just end up finishing yourself.
I think I wrote this post badly. I am working a full-time job, and so “full throttle” is probably not the best way to describe my part-time game development, even if I dedicate multiple hours a day to it.
What is probably more accurate is that I’ve been in the pit stop for way longer than necessary, so I needed to get out of there quickly. This past Saturday was more of a jumpstart to my development than anything else, and a much needed one at that. That day I really did kick butt at getting my development back on track. The next day, I didn’t touch the computer much at all.
Full throttle? Quite a stretch, now that I’m looking at it. Still, tonight’s development session should be more productive than in the past month.
I do need to think about a workable workflow model, though. Thanks for giving me things to think about.