In a continuing effort to improve my little company, I've been working on changing the process by which the games are released. Heretofore, I have looked over the titles available in the "pool" you see in the may's "Up & Coming" column to determine which get the nod for release in the coming year. They then enter final development and artwork in the order they will be coming out.

At right: Shirley. that nice lady you get to talk to on the phone much of the time. She's been working here for seven years now and hasn't thrown anything made of metal at me yet!

I was generally happy with the results of this system until A Raging Storm and Semper Fi! came out this past fall. Both included errors which I feel are totally unacceptable for games produced by my company. This caused me to make a hard look at the system I had been using. Because of the long-range forecast of game release, my work load varied between nothing to do and intense overwork.

This situation was exaggerated by the need to meet different print dates with different things. For example, our counters are printed and cut 8 sheets at a time. Few (any?) of our games have 8 sheets by themselves, so this invariably means I must tag up several games at once when counters are done. So far so good, except that those "other games" must come from those slated to come out in the future . . . and for that reason, I had to reach out to games I was not yet really working on and do their counters. That is where problems can come in.

At right: Me and my wheelchair...late March 98. 15 minutes of work followed by 30 minutes of resting. Things got much better by the end of April.

In years gone by, I was able to print the counters for a game with that game and no others. Interjecting future games into that process means I had to do final art on games which had not yet received my full developmental attention. While I was able to catch many things during this process, the cracks began to show.

So, to change this situation, I am evening up my work load. I will work on a game until it is in final form on my computer and then start on the next one. This process includes no reference to publication date. Once the games are done and in the hopper, I can turn them over to production. Some games will take longer than others, and that's fine. Essentially, I'm setting up a conveyor belt for final development and artwork which will allow me the freedom to give the games the attention they deserve before having to send out any artwork for final production.

Once fully up and running, I'll get production in line with me with a decent time lag. This will always allow me to be far ahead of the "need for games," with a small stock of essentially finished games on my computer awaiting the green light. I don't know how long it will take to get all these systems in tune with each other so that a) I'm far enough ahead to be comfortable and b) outflow of games equals inflow of finished developed games.

I believe this system will allow us to eventually put out more games per year. This is because now, with game releases set at least a year in advance, I end up with games that take less time to do, giving me excessive down time, while some more elaborate projects end up being unfairly compressed. Evening up the load will make it easier to get the "easy" ones out the door early, while giving the "hard" ones the time they need.

Given the time it takes to get through production itself, as well as the need to produce flyers, ad artwork, and such, this all means you'll enjoy about a six month lead time on what will be coming out (with hard dates and all, just like you are used to). The difference will be that those hard dates won't be given to games which aren't already finished and in the can.

Many won't notice the difference in scheduling at all. What I hope you do notice is that the kinds of mistakes made last fall don't occur. That's my job, and I'm going to fix it.

Of Note: Jungle Fever: Origins '99 Report (Ops34)