Self-improvement goal #1: Working harder on a consistent basis
To the surprise of exactly no one, games don’t make themselves. Games are the result of a lot of blood, sweat, tears, teeth-gnashing, and overall agonizing labor. To start, build, and finish game is a task that isn’t easily done with half-hearted dedication.
One of the biggest hurdles I’ve yet to fully overcome as an independent supposedly needing-to-be self-sufficient game developer is the skill to consistently be working hard on a game. Even now after six months on focusing on game development as my primary employment the rollercoaster that is my work ethic is still quite volatile. There are days were I easily can work 12 hours straight and there are other days where I’m lucky to achieve 1 hour of good work. The inconsistency hurts because it prevents accurate scheduling, its disruptive to people I collaborate with, and overall it just sucks to go through a day accomplishing little.
So my biggest goal this year is to develop this skill of hard work over consistent periods. So far over the past week and a half of 2010 I’ve tried to follow the advice I heard from Matthew and Steve from Flashbang and their development practices as discussed at last year’s GDC Austin. Regularly scheduled work periods and actually maintaining a commitment towards those scheduled periods. Single-tasking. And trying to respect the separation between work and play.
Additionally I’m attempting to utilize tools to enforce work through peer pressure. Greg Wohlwend of Intuition and Mikengreg has set up a Ventrilo chatroom (Tigvent) that goes a long way towards recreating the collaborative office environment for people working alone. My renewed focus on blogging here is partially to force me to remain relevant and engaged in game-making and the community. And I have a few other projects up my sleeve that I want to reveal that will also ensure such focus going forward in 2010.
So there’s my self-improvement goal numero uno for 2010. Now all I need to do… is actually do it.
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