Or perhaps, not so dreaded…

The humble deadline has plagued everyone since sliced bread (at the very least), although I have a feeling it stretches back much further than that. It’s a fun-sucking, vampire koala that constantly hugs your head, nagging and keeping you awake at nights. However, everybody loves a hug, regardless of how much you hate the person doing it. I put it to you that deadlines are one of the best inventions since whatever was around before sliced bread. If sliced bread had a deadline, it would have been sliced way before it was eventually sliced, and that’s the point!

Something I think all of us at Psync have discovered recently (by that I mean the past 2+ years) is that game development takes bloody ages! We’re into our 3rd year of development of a game that started out as a simple, 2D, flash game. Had this game been a university project, with an all important deadline, it would have been finished in 6 months (and would probably still be a simple, 2D, flash game). There always has to be some sort of compromise if you’re going to meet a deadline, unless you have the time keeping / project managing skills of a… ruddy good time keeper / project manager. Personally, I find making compromises is the most difficult part of keeping to a deadline. The continuous creative flow of ideas, sequels and different game ideas is hard to ignore, that’s what V2.0’s are for. For this reason, I find self inflicted deadlines a waste of time, unless you have the will power of… a ruddy will powered type of bloke, you’ve got no chance.

There is a very elegant dual purpose solution, that doesn’t just dive over the self inflicted deadline obstacle, but destroys another indie game barrier at the same time. However, as this is “multi-parter season” here on psyncinteractive.com, you can read the solution to this next week, in the exciting conclusion titled:

The dreaded ‘Promotion’

I know, shortest article ever… but, I can’t use up 2 ideas in one article now can I? See you next week Psynconaughts!