Long days, short weekends.

We have a major deliverable due at my studio at the end of the month. This means, inevitably, that we have a lot of work to do in the meantime to make sure it garners us top marks with our publisher. Which means, unsurprisingly, that I've been working quite a bit of overtime since New Year's, and will continue to do so through to the end of the month. To be precise, I worked six days last week (Monday through Saturday), three of them 10+ hour days. One of them was closer to 12.

I draw a parallel to writing (the only other creative process I know well): I never really feel as though a story I've written is 'done'. And I know from other writers - amateur as well as professional - that not many of them do either. At work, we have some pretty well-defined mandates for the milestone we're trying to hit, and I don't think that there is too much concern that we won't meet them. What is really getting under everyone's skin, in my opinion, is whether or not we can make it better. Just like any time I've done writing for a contest - I'm forever revising and re-writing right up to the last minute, just because I always feel like it could be better.

I think that game development is very similar: There is always that one feature, if we'd only had another month - even another week - could have made the game so much better. Designers are forever looking for that one elusive mechanic that can make their game stand out in the crowd. But even once they find it - if they find it - it can still be made better, more fun, more engaging -if only there was just a little more time left to test and iterate it.

And so we work late. And on weekends. Just to get all that extra stuff in that will help make our game look and feel so much more fun than any other game on the market. And so our publisher can look at it and say, 'Wow, we really should be investing a lot of money in this' (yes, it is all driven by the bottom line...).

But do you know what? I'm really happy about it. I still love going to work every day, I love what I do and I'm happy to stay those long hours, because I'm proud of the work that we're doing as team.

It's a nice feeling to have.