Scheduling

For this week's topic, I thought I'd talk a bit about scheduling. Setting up a schedule can be very tricky since a lot of things can happen between when you start and when you finish. So don't expect to be able to follow your schedule perfectly. Below, I'll briefly give some advice when creating a schedule.

First of all, if you don't have any sort of deadlines such as a competition or the like, you may want to create a schedule anyway. It can prevent you from making excuses to yourself for pushing work to a later day.

Your Team
As mentioned in one of my previous posts, when you want to start on a game, take a look at your team. Knowing your team will help you with your scheduling. For example, if the person who will be programming your game is new or still a beginner, then you should give some time in your schedule for them in case they need time programming a certain feature or mechanic... which brings me to my next advice.

Prototyping
Once you've decided on a game design, prototype it. Now, in regards to scheduling, prototyping allows you to see an estimate of the amount of work required to create your game. Now, what I suggest is to get your programmer(s) to implement not only the core mechanics, but the core experience as well. Get them to program as much of the game as possible in one week and at their own pace, with the latter being the most important.

Think of it this way, if your programmer(s) can achieve a lot when their being lazy, imagine what they can achieve when they work hard. So when you create your schedule while taking into account your programmer(s) comfortable pace, you may be able to finish work ahead of schedule and get more time for polish.

Polish Time
Speaking of polish, make room in your schedule for it. I tend to assign a quarter of the schedule to polish at least. Some companies can be polishing their game for years, so make sure you give yourself time for it.
 
Milestones
Once you have an idea of the size of the schedule, create small milestones for it. These are checkpoints that will help you achieve your schedule by splitting it into smaller, bite size pieces. For example, you may opt to create a milestone every month. Now, what these milestones are depends entirely on what kind of game you're developing. But generally, milestones should be the important features of your game such as getting enemies to work in an first-person shooter or a basic battle system for an adventure game.

Well, I hope that has been helpful for you. Remember that no schedule is perfect. You may end up finishing ahead of schedule or behind. But as with anything, the more experience you get, the better you'll become. Thanks for reading and see you all next week!

Also, if anyone has a suggestion for a topic they'd like me to talk about, please feel free to email me at ckamarga@gmail.com (along with any comments or criticisms you have).