Sure, Infinity Blade 2 is out, but the crunch time everyone went through to get it finished just wasn’t worth the stress.
Mobile gamers are undoubtedly thrilled that Chair Entertainment has finally put Infinity Blade II out on the App Store. However, in order to meet the December 1st deadline, the studio spent the past few months in a Team Bondi-like crunch mode (albeit without all the screaming), which one of the developer’s heads has stated just wasn’t worth the stress.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Chair co-founder Donald Mustard explained that the crunch came about because the studio shipped two games in six months. However, while the fast development time has its benefits, it’s also got its downsides:
“I think in retrospect, having done it twice, that our development cycles are a little too short. Not that the games are less polished because of it, but we’re way more burnt out because, in order to make II feel the experience it needed to be, required way more crunching than is effective. It required for us, for the last two or three months, to just death march kill ourselves. I mean, guys are just working so many hours, doing so much, and that’s not really good, I think, for the longevity of our studio.”
“And so we definitely won’t do that again. It’s not worth the cost. I would rather take an extra two or three months than burn the guys out, or burn even me out. It doesn’t allow enough time to sit there and let the game breathe.”
Mustard’s comments are certainly nice to read, since they demonstrate his concern for the development team. Mustard also made a point of mentioning that he is interested in developing Shadow Complex II, though it’ll probably take more than six months to get that sucker finished.
Source: Gamasutra
