Hit that Deadline!

Recent experience taken into account, I think the best way to accommodate the greater percentage of deadlines is to complete the work before exposing yourself to them.

Game design is very much a hobby for me at the moment, because the possibility of it paying the rent, so to speak, is a long way off. Primarily, it is a source of personal enjoyment and self satisfaction/development. That being said, I personally take deadlines very seriously as a measure of commitment to any project.

However, I’m also aware of the tenuous value of prior planning. It doesn’t matter how carefully you plan and how noble your intentions might be – accidents/changing circumstances will happen.

You can make any number of future projections and fail to consider the one thing that throws a spanner in the works. As people, we are flawed and lack the omnipotence required to consider every possible outcome and eventuality.

So there are times when, despite our best intentions and best planning, things wont develop the way we might wish. Unfortunately, it sometimes works out that way. And not all accidents are excuses, as far fetched as they might sometimes seem to be. Every now and then dogs really do eat the homework.

To stand tall as a mountain, and with the luxury of authority and hindsight, righteously proclaim ‘you should have done this and you are at fault’ is, and pardon me for saying so, a little self serving and disrespectful. Everybody makes mistakes at some point in their lives and everyone is affected by accidents at some point.

To dismiss this fact and ‘cast the first stone’ is somewhat naive and counter constructive. It’s true to say that the mountain won’t come to the man, but that shouldn’t automatically dictate that the mountain should hold fast and be wholly dismissive to the manner of the mans’ approach, especially if his journey has been plagued with misfortune.

Benevolence and forgiveness are important qualities in a person and a big a part of any healthy relationship, personal or otherwise - providing they don’t constitute the mainstay of the relationship and their employment is not constantly required.

There is one thing that can be relied on to have a guaranteed affect when free flowing creativity and stand fast deadlines have cause to meet. Namely, creative endeavors don’t thrive in a pressure pot of fixed expectation. As expectations rise to the fore and practical demands take centre stage the free flowing current of ideas will diminish to a trickle.

Creatives can and do recognise the importance of meeting deadlines, but whenever they are pressured to do so they will always have a niggling realisation in mind after the close of events - 'the final result could have been better'

There seems to be a widely prevailing thought that the world and everything in it marches to the beat of a prescriptive anthropocentric drummer. However, it can also be said, in relation to the greater scheme of things, that there are occasions when something is simply not meant to be – because the timing is not auspicious.

This reflection is somewhat fuzzy in its implications and recognition, especially in regard to western thought. However, I personally try to pay attention to situations where this might be the case.

You can usually identify these situations by their surrounding circumstances and the sequence of events that are common to them. In such cases you can feel like you are pushing against the world, forcing your will to take precedence over something it has no right or hope to influence.

And these are the times when it doesn’t seem to matter how carefully you’ve planned, how noble your intentions are, how responsive you are to the tide of changing circumstances, or how committed you are to seeing things through – everything just goes tits up.

At times like these it can be a good idea to recognize that some things simply aren’t meant to be - regardless of how attractive and important an opportunity may present itself as being. It could be that a particular opportunity was meant for someone else or the timing simply isn’t right and no amount of personal influence will change that.

For me, these are the rare times when it’s respectful to tip your hat to the greater forces at work, greet the personally undesirable course of events with a smile and be content that as infallible human beings we aren’t always the active determinants of our own fate.

So, how is such a conflux of counter rationales to be harmonized in respect to an outlook where the commercial world is fixated on deadlines, as it surely needs to be in a mutually co-operative business environment?

Honestly, I don’t think I have anywhere near the level of wisdom required to propose an unequivocal solution – one that will encompass every potential eventuality.

So how far have I got?

Creativity and Commercial Deadlines

Strict parameters aren’t harmonious with free flowing creativity. Combining the two is like attempting to mix together oil and water. These two separate and distinct elements realise their values in different ways. Forcing the two of them to co-exits will always work to the detriment of both in relation to the final outcome.

Compromise is the mainstay of any successful relationship and by considering the difference in value realisation models for both elements the greatest value for both areas can be achieved. That being said, the final outcome will still trail behind the results that could be achieved in one area, with dedicated output at the expense of the other.

Planning to Avoid Accidents

If you fail to plan, you will plan to fail - but, even if you plan not to fail then things can still go very wrong. This is simply because of the arrogance involved in assuming that the plans of one person can ever dictate the turnings of the natural world order. It is a vain notion that we as a species frequently fall prey to - in our rampant attempts to subjugate the natural order to our individual wants and needs.

The world is never ours to fully command, we are simply pieces of flotsam and jetsam adrift upon currents beyond our full control and understanding. We can willfully paddle to make our immediate environment more conducive to our own requirements and influence our own travel. However, the overall course of our journey and the manner in which we will eventually reach our future destination are simply outside our scope of understanding.

Outcome

If the opportunity exists, then get as much as possible ready in advance of submitting yourself to any deadline. Try to put things in place that may or may not be of use in respect to a number of potential outcomes. This will provide the flexibility needed to adjust to changing circumstances.

If you complete the design for a single game and it should happen to be successful then you might expect the demand for future designs to increase. Should that demand be excessive then you could easily find yourself subject to a loose imperative that impacts upon your creative process – the requirement of a follow up release(s) of comparable quality in quick time to capitalise on the success of the former release.

If a design is accepted then it should be considered that either the theme or constituent mechanics may be expected to undergo a revision of some form. So why not address that expectation at the outset and include a number of complete alternatives that may or may not be used. These alternate implementations can be designed outside of a deadline situation, free from the creative inhibitors of the pressure pot, and introduced if needed.

If game designing is something a person views as a potential full time occupation then why focus on completing either one or a couple of games. Instead, focus on completing a healthy stock of finished games so that you have the resources necessary to fuel the ongoing demands of a future requirement pipeline.

With a healthy store of potential releases (designed to address different price points, game play mechanics and objectives, routes to market, and publisher requirements in respect to their current range) the design to order deadlines that might be experienced can be offset or complied with much more easily.

And that’s about it, instead of focusing on a plan to meet the limited number of potential factors we can, rightly or wrongly, conceptualise it might be an idea to develop (in advance) a number of branching provisions that will serve to increase the flexibility available to paddle with changing circumstances.

Oh, and choose your opportunities calmly, carefully and with due consideration – because the glowing allure of a bright opportunity doesn’t automatically dictate that the particular opportunity is for you or that the timing of the opportunity is auspicious.

And this is probably the best thing about our infallible selves in respects to wants, desires and planning to achieve them. We don’t know what the future holds and it is highly presumptuous to believe otherwise, laughable even. Sometimes things happen and we wish they hadn’t, but it may be that they happened in order that future events can happen in they way they are intended to happen.

It can be hard to take such eventualities in some cases, but such happenings should never be a case of ill feeling, upset or dejection, they should be viewed philosophically in light of the great unknowable. Or maybe my personal outlook is simply clouded by the fact that my own leaning is coloured by degrees in both Business Enterprise and Philosophy – which has led me to believe that oil and water can be successfully combined if the differences between both elements are recognised and respected.