[MUD-Dev] Crunch time

[Mark Terrano \{XBOX\}]

Sean Kelly wrote:

>> Mark Terrano (XBOX) wrote: on the calendar 6 months in advance
>> and say "July 31, Today the game is 100% fun".  You iterate
>> toward fun, you polish towards fun, and hopefully you started out
>> form a prototype that already had a spark of fun.

> An excellent point.  And one that made me stop to think.  But
> while this polishing may be necessary, it should not require any
> fundamental changes to the product itself...

You have to do everything you can to make the game fun - if that
involves stripping it down to the foundation and building over again
*that's what you do* - or you can decide to ship something that
isn't fun: we see the results of that all the time.  Yes, all
projects have feature requests and customer revelations (must haves)
once they start using the system...but the pass/fail decision for
the system is one of function and basic performance (meets spec,
doesn't crash too much).  If the game isn't fun it doesn't matter
much that the graphics run at 60fps.  In my IT days I would have
never torn out a *functioning, to-spec* major system to make a
better one.  In games you do what you have to do and use crunch time
to make up the difference between the spec and the fun.

>> Not all crunch is from 'bad management, geeks, cowboy
>> programmers' either: Crunch time comes from people being
>> passionate about their

> My mother used to be a painter.  She is a perfectionist.  This
> weekend my grandmother told me a story of my mother...  over.
> Today, 40 years later, that painting is hanging unfinished on my
> grandmother's wall--one corner is still scraped clean.

Your mom should have just gone into crunch and busted that thing out
in the 3 days before Grandma's birthday. :) A valid point - but
every studio and artist has to pick a point and say "this is as good
as we can reasonably make it" or they'll be like your painting
mom. I think Katie covered it for me when she said: "When you're
trying to make a deadline as a project manager, artists SUCK.".

> For some, perhaps.  But I like to be able to go home to my wife at
> 6pm and have my weekends free.

Can't argue with free agency - or your priorities.

I also appreciated everyone's comments about "good crunch" vs. "bad
crunch" - I think for me its always been "good crunch" was something
I wanted to do as an individual (and team), and "bad crunch" was
something someone else imposed on me.  I have many wonderful
memories of "good crunch" and the people that were there with me.
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