Chapter 5 Focus ...........................

Chapter 5 Focus.............................

“Feel the flow... To become one with the flow is to realize purpose.”

— Warrel Dane

D

eveloping a game for two years with a team of twenty people typically more
resembles war than the creation of art. Many would say that a decent amount
of conflict can lead to great art, especially in collaborative forms such as mod-
ern commercial computer games. A stronger game may arise from the ashes of team
members arguing over the best way to implement some aspect of gameplay. If the game
merely becomes unfocused as a result of these squabbles, then a good game is not likely
to emerge. Over the course of the many battles you must fight, skirmishes you must
endure, and defeats you must overcome in the course of a game’s development, with
conflicts potentially arising with other team members or from within yourself, it is far
too easy to lose track of just why you were creating the game in the first place. Is it pos-
sible that at one point the game you are working on captivated your imagination? Was
there some vision you had for why this game would be fun, compelling, and unique? Is it
possible that at one point you actually liked computer games at all?

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