Zach Kehs — aka SunnyKatt on Yoyogames’ forums — has taken the time to answer some questions I had about his upcoming game Koya Rift which looks like a mix between awesome and fantastic. And it has some interesting enginework and design philosophies behind it.
Here to elaborate, by proxy of my fingers, is the man himself.
In a previous article, I described 4 Devils that make it difficult to accurately schedule games, which makes it difficult to even complete games, much less complete games and polish them to the point where they deserve to be released. But how do we defeat these devils?
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Earlier I described the typical production cycle in the game industry, both the ideal and practical extremes. It was humorous, fo sho, but of course there is a hint of truth to it. Games constantly slip, being pushed back months or years beyond the originally expected schedule. Sometimes even more than a decade. Games large and small, developed by novice and experienced developers. And we do use schedules in this industry. Why isn’t it as simple as making a realistic schedule and then following it? This is an incredibly complex topic that I won’t be able to fully dive into right now, but I can point out a few simple devils that I’ve seen show their ugly devil heads on several occasions, across several different projects and at several different companies.
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Game development is not an easy task, as you may have already guessed. How do you keep a team of dozens or hundreds of people working toward the same goal, staying on track, and delivering a quality product, all without violating basic human rights via torturing the least contributor and cracking barbed-wire whips dipped in frog piss on your enslaved workforce? The answer is a resounding “Schedules”. Or you could torture the least contributor and crack barbed-wire whips dipped in frog piss under an at-will employment agreement; you’ll be in the clear (those fuckers can leave anytime they want to let the wounds heal on their backs while starving to death in a devastated economy). This article will focus on scheduling, particularly the production cycle that has become common in the game industry.
The typical production cycle of modern game development, in a nutshell, is as follows:
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Gamasutra has a short article up today about a new initiative to fund small game development studios, lead by Joystick Labs, which defines itself as a “seed-stage accelerator”. It offers $6,000 per founder of the title, up to $18,000, and requires relocating to North Carolina. Joystick Labs will fund and mentor a project, and in return expect to get a “modest equity stake” in the company they are helping out and a “share of the money generated by the game or app” (quotes taken from the Joystick Labs FAQ as of 4:08PST 8-9-10).
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