A little over a week has gone by since I last posted a blog about the development of my game: "Sleepless". If you have not read it, you can find it here. After a month of development time, we now have a solid demo build of the game to show off. In the past week I have been hard at work reading over and editing the script while my partner has been fixing bugs and tweaking game mechanics.

However, both of us have had fairly busy schedules and work has not progressed as much as I would have liked. I just started a new job while my friend is taking night classes, so finding time to do what we set out to do in any given week can be quite difficult. This brings me to the topic of this blog: the importance of setting deadlines and managing tasks. Some of you expressed interest in knowing more about the development process in order to make games too. I am as new to this as anyone could be, but here's some advice I can offer.

When embarking on a project like this, it can be very easy to let time escape from you. The problem is that there is no penalty if you do not finish it. Nobody is going to fire you or pull funding away from you. You are only accountable to yourself and any other person you are working with. That is why from the get-go it is important to set up a tentative schedule with weekly milestones to complete. Each week we set what we want completed for the next week and manage tasks accordingly. Each person's role in the development process is also clearly defined. For example, I am the writer and sound designer while my partner is the programmer. We have another third person as the artist. We share game design duties equally between us. Over the course of the week we check in on each other to make sure that work is advancing as planned. We hold regular skype meetings to discuss development and share copies of all our documents on google docs. By using these measures, we are at least accountable to a deadline, if not ourselves.

Another way to increase motivation and make yourself more accountable is to put your game out there. This is why I started this dev log. Even if there is only one person who follows this game's development and wants to play a finished product, I know that I am accountable to that person. That can be a huge motivation boost.

If anyone has any specific questions about the game or the process of making it, just drop a line. I'm not really sure what I should be talking about in these dev logs so I'll be happy to write about anything people want.

On a side note, I have a twitter account that I promise to start using more often. So does the programmer of the game. You should add us.

@Viggiegames and @nu11_

Also, here's some more art for the game. It's a kitchen.