Plan for Mattias Gustavsson

Life and game development

I guess you know how it is. You're doing fine, the game progress at a steady pace, you start thinking "Yeah, at this rate, it'll soon be done!". Then something happens. Usually, it is referred to as "life gets in the way". Things happen, unforeseen things, things beyond your control. This changes things, you might find that you no longer have as much free time on your hands, you can't maintain the necessary focus, or any number of things that mess up your flow.

About two months ago, me and Tanja moved from Scotland to Vienna. The new job was a good one, much simpler tasks than the previous one, more days off, a limit to the overtime, and we had a flat 5 minutes from work. This was great for productivity, and we've gotten loads done while living here. No more getting up at 5 to make sure I got an hour or two done on our own stuff before being off to the day job. Things were great.

But a few weeks ago, the company got into some trouble. Basically, they had a bit of financial problems, due to circumstances mostly beyond their control. This meant that our own financial situation became too unstable for us to stay, and now we're moving back to the UK. I agreed with the company to stay for two weeks, to finish my current milestone, and then I'm off. Those two weeks are almost at an end now.

This have upset things a lot, and the whole uncertainty of it all (Where will we end up living? What new job will I get? Will the money we have left be enough to cover all expenses, like travelling for interviews, up-front rent and deposit for a new flat etc) have made things difficult, to say the least.

The short of it all, is that progress on the game have been really slow for the last few weeks. It's not like nothing have been done, but it's been so unfocused, just a little bit here, a little bit there... Hard to judge how much actual progress been made. Maybe a little, maybe none... The only real tangible thing is an algorithm for generating fractal ground-tiles from a tile-based height map, but that's just two days work at most.

I keep telling myself that once the move is done with, it will all fall into place again, progress will once again be good and there'll be no problems. But that's only until next time isn't it? Next time life hits you with something unexpected. Next time things get out of hand... I'm thinking that the trick is to keep your focus even through the rough patches, but I'll be damned if I know how? I'd be really interested in hearing other peoples thoughts on this topic, so feel free to comment on this plan or e-mail me privately.

And for those who are interested: I have a new job already, actually for a company I've worked for in the past. They're happy to get me back, and I'm happy to go back there. We'll be back in UK on friday, and from then on, work on Shepherds Inn will hopefully get right back on track.