RWDevCon Inspiration Talk – Finishing by Kim Pedersen

I Can Take On This Monster!

I was totally haunted by this monster of incompletion, and the ironic thing is, I’m a professional project manager in my day job.

It’s my job, to manage large development projects at a pharmaceutical company that

• often have budgets in the double digit millions
• have more than forty people, and several contractors working on it at the same time
• have deadlines

I make sure these projects get finished, and finished on time.

Why couldn’t I do this in my hobby? I started to think, what is it that I do in my day job that I don’t do in my hobby projects? I put on my project management hat, and I started to think, what project management techniques can I use in my hobby, that will make me finish my games?

Today, I’ll share four of these techniques with you.

Monster Beheading Technique #1: Be Selective

The first one, is to be selective. When you start a project, start one that you’re actually passionate about, and one that you’re willing to see all the way through, even when things get tough.

I have embarked on many, many game projects where what piqued my interest was a game mechanic. When I made that game mechanic, the game was no longer interesting, so I abandoned it. I had spent a lot of time developing that game mechanic, and had nothing to show for it in the end.

It’s important not just to jump into a project when you get the idea, but start to think:

• What does it actually take to do it?
• Do I want to do it?
• Do I have what it takes to do it?

If you are not sure if your project can keep you interested, dip your feet in the pool first; start with a prototype. Not only will the prototype tell you if this is something you actually want to do, it will also tell you if something is downright bad, and let you abandon it, even before you have spent too much time on it.

Monster Beheading Technique #2: Plan!

The second thing is, plan. One of the biggest obstacles to finishing a project is time, or rather, lack thereof. When you start out, think about how much time do I actually have, or do I want to spend on this project, and start planning according to that.

If you think about how much time you have, and say, “I have two weeks to complete this”, or “I have three days, because I have a game jam in three days,” then don’t make

• a 3D game
• with endless worlds
• with thousands of assets
• and John Williams type music

because you won’t make it in time!

Instead, start to think, how much can I actually do in this time, and what do I need to make to actually finish it? Set a scope.

You will have a plan for what you need to do. You will also have the scope of the things you need to make in order to finish. You can use that plan actively when you need to start making decisions about what you need to actually still include, and what you need to cut.

What he meant by this is that no plan is ever static. When you start out working on your project, you will start to realize things that you missed, when you started the initial planning that you need in order to complete the game.

When you start planning, also put in a buffer in case of contingencies. Planning, and re-planning will make it easier for you to evaluate what you need to make.

It will also make it easier for you to know whether or not you are on track. When you get into the situation of realizing you are actually behind schedule, use the plan to figure out what do I need to make to make this project a success, and what don’t I need to make it a success, and cut that part out.

Monster Beheading Technique #3: Be Realistic

Have any of you heard the phrase, “the sky is the limit”? That’s ludicrous, at least if you ever want to get anything finished.

What you can actually make is a function of the skills you have, and the time you have to spend. If you are unrealistic about what you’re trying to make, you won’t make your game at all, and it will end up as an unfinished project once more.

Set your ambitions straight, and get the ambitions to be realistic. When you then come into a situation where you know you only have a limited time to do something, you should scale your project according to that. Also, if you don’t have the skills it takes to make it, then start small.

Being realistic also means, you have to stop being a perfectionist. I know many of us would have this sensation that we need to get things just right.

I’ve often fallen into this trap of thinking, my codes are a mess. I should scrap all of it, and start over. I’ve learned so much already, so I can make it much better now, and I can make it in half the time.

Stop!

This is a trap!

Not only will you not need to do everything perfectly, no one except you, cares about it. You can still make a good project that is not perfect, and still have a success with it, without it being perfect.

What it also means is that when you make this, you need to push on, and keep going.

Monster Beheading Technique #4: Keep Momentum

That leads to the fourth thing, momentum. Momentum has more to do with how you feel about the project than anything else. We have all had the sensation of having this really good idea, and it feels like someone lit a firecracker under our chair, and we just want to get started right away. Go!

The thing about that is, after some time, that fuse will start to run out, and the project will feel a lot like work. That’s natural in the cycle of any project. It will always happen.

It’s at that time, all the other ideas you have start to seem very, very appealing. They can be much better, so you should stop what you’re doing right now, and pursue them instead, and not waste more time.

Don’t! This is another trap!

It’s easy to start something new, but finishing is hard. To keep momentum, start to re-think what got you excited about the project in the first place, and why you are now doubting it.

Is it because you’ve hit a speed bump? Well, move on to another part of the project. You don’t have to keep working on what you’re doing now. If you move on to something else, you’ll keep being productive.

That puts you into another position. If you move to a part that is really boring to make, and there are a lot of things that are boring to make, think about if you really need to do it that day. Sometimes it’s actually really refreshing to do the boring stuff, so save it for that day, and do something right now that you actually feel passionate about.

What you’ll quickly realize is, doing ten minutes is easy. That will pass very fast, and often those ten minutes will be an hour, or it will be two hours.

Very importantly here, is you’ll keep moving forward. If you keep moving forward, at some point, you’ll cross the finish line. It’s a mathematical fact.