Fundbetter Q: 8

Strap in. Are you ready?

8. What needs to be done to make the game ready for release? Think in terms of ‘n weeks of work’, not in terms of release date. Think about software licenses, any images or music assets you might need. Don’t forget QA.

The easy answer is what? Forever? Never? Eight million trillion billion years? A week? Well. A week is unrealistic and of course forever is a dumb answer because no one wants to put out cash for a game that will never happen. If you're game is worth starting it's worth finishing. That's hard, I know, but it's true.

So here's what I looked at with my own project. There's stuff I know how to do, write a scene and put it into the game. Assuming I could generously get about four or five scenes a week on top of other project goals (which I'll list later) and my other job/responsibilities that means I've got... Gulp.... about ten weeks of work?

But that's the 'easy' stuff. The hard stuff comes in with stuff I DON'T yet know how to do. (Like the audio segment.)

Ideally, my plan is to have at least some of the material backed up with audio. Now. I have some inside help with that, hopefully. All of that audio material, sound track and so on, can theoretically be managed by Fungus, the engine helper I'm using. But since this is entirely a new thing for me, I have to give myself some time to sort that on top of finishing the core of the game. I'll also have to leave room for getting audio from an actor far the project, which is it's own thing. I'm looking at at least six months there, if I'm modest about it.

Q and A is another thing. Getting people to play your game on their own builds in their own time is ... tricky. Clearly I'd like to make it worth their time. Assuming this takes another three months to wrangle and satisfy, that makes it looks like from this point forward I have another nine months of labor. (And believe me, I know about labor! HAHA!)

With all that in mind, I'm probably looking at nine months to a year time (buffer time for things to go wrong.) I feel like that's a reachable goal.

But what about you? You need to pitch without over or underestimating what you can get done, right? How? The best I can suggest is what I've done here. Look at what you can already do and how long that should take. (Time a day's work or check by that check list I KNOW your working from, right?) How intensive is that work? Is that your whole day of work? (Noting for many that a day of work for game development might be the three hours on every other Tuesday you get to work on it thanks to your first and second job's hourly schedule.) Be realistic about your schedule here. I suggested I could only do four scenes a week. I'm sure I'll end doing more some weeks. But less others. So that felt like a good average. What about you? How many hours do you have a week for your project? Be generous. Give yourself room to breath.

Now look at what you don't yet know how to do. Is it something you're going to have to watch sixteen hours of tutorials to even start practicing it? Again, be generous with yourself here. Learning is hard.

Will your steps require you reach outside to other talent? Art, audio, editing? Other people add time. And you want to be fair to them too. Add time for that. Shit happens in your life, shit happen in the lives of others as well, right? Right.

Look at your schedule too once you've got a rough guess at time frame and be more exacting. How's your November look? Is that crunch time in your 'other job' as a household manager expected to wrangle a lot of holiday stuff for your family? Is January when shit gets real at your day job? Do you basically have nothing to do over summers because school is out? Be prepared to ramp up and slow down as your whole life ebbs and flows. This is work-life management and it's good for you. If you're looking at this project as work or as a break from your soul-killing other work, you need to leave yourself breathing room. A game that you burn out making never gets made, so that three month projection isn't so impressive. Got it? Good!