One of the challenges I face at work is ensure good communications with my team. The game is currently in pre-production, which means its design changes practically daily. Every day, I have to answer questions like what game mechanics we’ll be including, what story we’re going to tell, how we’re going to tell it, what engine we’ll use to simulate physics, how the physics will differ from real-world physics, how many levels, how many visual effects artists we need, when we have to have the script ready for localization, how we can make it look realistic given the constraints of the consoles, what consoles we’re developing for, what we’re expected to deliver in the next milestone, what team member reports to whom, etc. And oftentimes, the answers change with the design.

It quickly gets confusing trying to remember what you told whom, and making sure all the ever-changing information is shared with all the relevant people, without spamming all 22 team members with constant e-mails they may not read.

Well. I’m very excited to have found a solution: a producer’s blog on the company intranet, an idea blatantly ripped off from a colleague. I figure, I’m already in the habit of blogging anything that happens, and people can access my project blog at their leisure for updates.

This is the kind of thing that really excites me. Sad, eh?