作者：Samuel Rantaeskola

我这辈子多数时间都不用信用卡，原因很简单，我并不信任对这种提前透支的理念。信用卡所有者可以选择花掉自己的薪水，用每月支票来还卡债。每个月她都开通一个空帐户，并建立一个新的信用卡帐单。她可以通过这种策略限制自己的额外开支（游戏邦注：例如与好友心血来潮的一次旅行），我认为更好的方法是拥有存款，这可以让你更自然地时常承担自己的预算所允许的大额开支。

安排好你的个人时间也同此理。假设你一丝不苟地提前一个月安排好自己的日程表，那就不太可能出现自发性活动。你得把它们排到下个月，或者重新调整你的日程表，以便为新活动腾出空间。在我看来，这是一种极为无聊的生活，会丧失大量乐趣。

提到游戏时，人们普遍认为趣味无法计划。当然，你可以作一些有根据的推测，但最终你还是得根据屏幕上的情况进行评估和调整。我很认同这一观点。

以下是一些你可以运用于项目计划的相同观点：

calendar(from upandrunning)

1.缩减待办任务列表

在待办任务列表中看看你的游戏范围，其大小应该小于剩余容量。其中差异越大，就越可能产生额外的趣味。但不要忘了在这个列表中添加你的发现，否则你最终会发现自己无法追踪“趣味”的剩余空间。

2.在列表中使用特别标注

如果列表中还有许多未确定事项，那就要创造特别标注，描述应该检查的内容。再结合缩减的待办任务列表，你就可以追踪到自己还要办哪些事情，同时又不会挤压趣味空间。

3.不要使用自动化工具

如果你使用GANTT来规划项目，最好不要使用分层等功能来自动安排资源需求期。这会产生没有趣味空间的紧凑日程表。手动安排日程表更有助于让你思考计划的可行性。

4.重视目标导向的计划而非缓冲区

如果你使用敏捷开发方法，这一般可在任务列表极为庞大的情况下，保持完成短期任务（带有长期目标）的日程安排。GANTT日程安排法一般适用于由目标驱动的冗长事项，而不是针对特定一群人的任务。缓冲区可以创造一种安全感，为趣味腾出许多空间，但最终却会被那些疏漏之事所耗尽。

5.信赖团队

这是目前最重要的事情。团队最清楚问题，最可能鉴别出那些最终会变成乐趣的元素。为这些元素预留一些空间，而不是压缩它们的时间，这样才能创造更优质的产品。

我曾试图避免制定自己的旅行计划，回首过去，我认为自己在这一点上相当成功，但有些人却会为此而不满。因为这给他们的生活带来了消极影响，因为他们无法制定与我相关的计划。因此这促使我去思考如何将这种观念运用于游戏项目。

许多游戏制作都有固定日程安排，以及明确项目愿景的大型合同。工作室和发行商的关系会因为项目可预见性和杰出性的需求而动荡。在这种情况下，就很有必要制定让发行方满意的紧凑而极富雄心的项目计划。但矛盾的是，这种方法通常会产生更不可预测和更低劣的产品。团队就会被迫遵从既定的计划，忽视那些可能更好或更快的方案。在允许我们继续开发大型游戏，又不牺牲掉个人健康的情况下解决这个问题，或许就是游戏开发的最高境界。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Plan for freedom

by Samuel Rantaeskola

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

For most of my life I haven’t had a credit card, the simple reason is that I don’t believe in spending money that I don’t have yet. The owner of a credit card can choose to spend the amount she gets in salary and pay the bill with her monthly paycheck. Each month she starts with an empty account and starts building a new credit bill. With this strategy she has limited possibilities to take on any extra expenses if new opportunities come along, for example a spontaneous trip with her friends. A better approach in my mind is to have a buffer (savings), which allows you to be spontaneous and every now and then take on larger expenses than your budget allows.

Planning your personal time has the same traits as the above. Let’s say that you meticulously fill your calendar for one month ahead, spontaneous activities are now made impossible. They have to be planned for the next month, or you will have to re-organize your schedule to fit the new activity. In my mind this is a very boring life, where most of the fun will be taken out of it.

When talking about games, a common saying is that you can’t plan fun, it comes along. Sure, you can make some educated guesses, but in the end you will have to evaluate on what is on the screen and adjust. I strongly agree with that statement.

There are several things that you can do to apply the same thinking to project plans.

1. Undersize the backlog

Looking at the scope of your game in your backlog at any given moment in you project, the size of it should be smaller than the remaining capacity. The bigger the difference (to a certain extent), the more room for extra-fun you have. But don’t fall in the trap of not adding the discoveries to the backlog. If you fail to do that you will eventually lose track of how much room for “fun” you have left.

2. Use spikes in the backlog

When there is an area with a lot of uncertainty, create spikes in your backlog that describe what should be examined. This in combination with an undersized backlog allows you to keep track of what still needs to be done, while leaving room for fun.

3. Don’t automate planning

If you are planning your project using GANTT scheduling, it’s not a good idea to automatically plan the resource time using functionality such as leveling. This creates a packed schedule that leaves no room for fun. The manual approach is much stronger as it forces you to think on how this will work in reality.

4. Prefer goal-driven containers over buffers

If you are using agile methodologies, this refers to having large epics in the backlog and also maintaining a schedule of sprints that have a larger goal attached to them. In GANTT scheduling this would be long items that are goal-driven, rather than tasks for a set of people. Buffers can create the sense of security that there is a lot of room for fun, but in the end it will be eaten up by things that slip.

5. Trust the team

This is by far the most important thing. The team is closest to the problem and most likely to identify those small nuggets that eventually will become fun. Leaving them room to actually explore and create, instead of packing their time, will lead to better product.

In the description of this post I stated that I tried to avoid planning my vacation as much as possible. Looking back at it I think I succeeded fairly well, but some people were a bit disgruntled with my effort. It affected their lives negatively, since they couldn’t plan the parts that involved me. This brings me to the aspects that make this kind of thinking hard to apply in a lot of game projects.

Many games are produced with fixed schedules and large contracts defining the expectations on the game. The relationship between studios and publisher is riddled with demands on predictability and excellence. In this environment a packed and extremely ambitious project plan is needed to keep the publishing side happy. Paradoxically this leads to less predictable and poorer products. The team is forced to follow predefined plans and ignore possibilities that could either be better or faster. Solving this problem is the holy grail of game development in order for us to continue building the large magnificent games we are creating today, without sacrificing our health on the way.（source：gamasutra）