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Book review: Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total...
Here’s a book I wish every manager would read, especially the managers in charge of my project (pure self-interest in my part, I admit it). It’s short, focused, to the point, and it drives home a very...
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If I Had a Hammer…
The sun is shining, the air is warm, leaves are finally coming out. Spring is here. Time to put on my rose-colored glasses and do some armchair quarterbacking. I often find myself saying “If I owned a...
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Postmortems: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
When starting a project, it is always a good idea to reflect very critically on your past projects. Think about what went right, and especially what could have been done better, and come up with a plan...
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Cowboy Coders and the Hero Programmer Culture
Yeee-haaa! Get your compiler and debugger ready and saddle up, pardner. We got some codin’ to do. Cowboy coders There’s no denying it: The games industry is full of cowboy coders. Sure, other...
View ArticleAgile Game Development: Dealing with Chaos in the Real World
No plan survives first contact with the enemy. In game development, detailed milestones, complex schedules, and careful planning often go out the window as soon as the project starts. Agile development...
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All Work No Play, Makes Jack a Dull Game Developer (Part 1)
This article has been a long time coming. It should be abundantly clear from past articles I’ve written (and from my rants if you know me in person) that I feel very strongly about quality of life...
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All Work No Play, Makes Jack a Dull Game Developer (Part 2)
“Wanted: Young, skinny, wirey fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week.” Pony Express advertisement, 1860. That would be a funny...
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Book Review: Waltzing with Bears
Exactly a year ago today, I put up the first article on Games from Within. It was a review of Tom DeMarco’s book Slack. I thought it would make for a nice, symmetrical bookend to wrap the year up with...
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Book Review: Pair Programming Illuminated
Pair programming really needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Just a few years ago, I loved my single office and I was completely against the idea of spending all my time programming with...
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A Day in the Life
High Moon Studios is an unusual company in the games industry. We’re applying agile methodologies for all of our development. My team in particular is using both Scrum (an agile management methodology)...
View ArticleNo Rest for The Indies
You’d think that things would slow down around Christmas time over here. And that I would have lots of time to catch up and write about all the things I keep jotting down in my overflowing “to write”...
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Indie Project Management For One: Tools
I’ve been making computer games in some form or another for just over 25 years now. At the very beginning, as a hobby (passion) and completely by myself (although not for lack of trying to get some of...
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Casey’s Contraptions And The IGF
Today is the day! We finally announced my next game: Casey’s Contraptions. This is a bit of a different project than some of my past ones. This one is a collaboration with Miguel Ángel Friginal from...
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