aftermathteam
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Thoughts on distribution of work load.
🕑 Added 2017-11-28 17:47:05 +0000 UTC Since the A1 release of Inheritance, I've been making weekly releases of one game or the other for a little over a month now. At times, with the need to release a new build every week, it has been close to overwhelming at times with everything else that goes on with these projects.I'm looking at how best to approach this for the long term and wanted to get the perspective of all of you. Not having internet over the long weekend pushed home for me just how much time I spend on things other than writing
Current System: How things stand right now, I can keep up with the weekly release. That said, it IS cutting into my writing time which is starting to result in slightly less content in each release.
Proposed System: I'm thinking that it would result in more content being created in the long run if we shifted this to a bi-weekly schedule. Releases between Wanton Cove and Inheritance would still alternate, but with the extra week I expect that the releases would be larger because of the extra time I would be able to invest into them.
Additionally, if we made the change, the "What should I work on" polls would change just a little bit as well, becoming a bi-weekly poll. The idea would be that I invest a full week into Wanton Cove, then the second week would be dedicated to whatever people voted for. The third week would be invested into Inheritance then the fourth week would be dedicated to what people voted for again. The result of this would be that when I completed a to-do list, I'd start working on the next thing I wanted to complete instead of shifting gears. And the off weeks working on whatever was voted for would ensure that those votes had a bigger impact on how I distribute my time.
Thoughts? Comments? Opinions? Please vote and/or post below!
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I thought it may be fun to give you guys a brief breakdown of how much time and work goes into each week. Kind of a brief glimpse at what my typical week looks like. The numbers below are kind of generalizations, some weeks can be much more or much less than those.
+10 Hours replying to messages (eMail, PM, Forums. Probably an hour and a half, maybe just a little more on average each day. Right after releases tends to be the busiest with things dying down to just a couple of messages most days when we near the next release. That said, this is one of my favorite parts of the job, and I love doing it.)
+20 Hours creating (Writing and/or coding.)
+5 Hours working with the other members of Aftermath Team (Half an hour to an hour a day on average sending messages back and forth, pulling Q&A sessions, etc.)
+5 Hours related to bug fixes (Usually this comes in one or two lumps of time as I try to fix what's been reported immediately after a new build is released of something)
+5 Hours play testing. (Every time a new test build or a fix comes out, I make an effort to test the game. For test builds, that may take a couple of hours or more. For new fixes I tend to just invest a couple of minutes to fun down the specific place I was working.)
5-10 Hours related to new releases (Couple of hours to get everything ready and double check what I'm about to release. An hour, sometimes two to get a new release posted everywhere. Then I try to keep a pretty close eye on all the places the game has been posted so I can start working on bug fixes as soon as possible after they are reported.
-In addition to all of that, I'm a stay at home parent who does most of the household chores, cooks, and all that fun stuff.
And if you want to know EXACTLY how I feel about all of that "work", . . .
And I wouldn't change it for the world.
Comments
Aftermath Team
We do what we love. ;)
Gurt
i had to take the last one xD cause i think both variants are good... also well its true
Aftermath Team
While the main narrative of Wanton Cove is nearing completion, I view that as a fairly linear path through the game. Once the main ending is in place, then its time to go back and flesh the game out substantially. While you'll soon be able to play the game start to finish, what you see now is only about 2/3 of the content I want to include before declaring the game truly complete. Also, I have several other projects on the back burner that are in various stages of planning. When we near the end of our Wanton Cove journey, I'll start working on one of those projects to prepare it for production so that it can hopefully replace Wanton Cove as the second active project. Granted, that's probably a year away still. ;)
john doe
I know lots of people want it released, but I almost wouldn't want Wanton Cove completely finished because then you'd get bored only doing Inheritance :P
Aftermath Team
That's why two primary projects works so well for me. Any time I find myself feeling a little burnt out on one project, I can sneak over to the other for a little bit for something fresh. :D
john doe
It's good to switch up what you're writing on, if you need to. No sense pigeon-holing yourself into only ever working on one project.
