Very well, you’re working on a project together. All team members are assigned to their tasks and meets their deadlines. You’ve got your neatly developed work schedule and you’re sticking to it. Suddenly, you get a message from a publisher that the plans have changed and your team is supposed to work on a finished product and test it in every way possible. You have less than 3 weeks. What now?
- GIVE US A BREAK, THAT WASN’T PART OF THE DEAL, I HATE LOCALIZATION *throwing desk into the air, slamming the door*
- Perhaps we could extend the deadline Sir, just a little bit, holidays are coming, you know…
- We’re not going to make it? HOLD MY BEER!
We’ve ended up with option C, obviously. For last two weeks, we’ve been working our fingers to the bones. We’re working 12 hours a day and skipping some classes at the university; all to finish our work in time. We spent first couple of days double correcting the text in order to eliminate some errors before implementing it into the game. Afterwards, we c new translation memory and generated new XML file with Polish version. Then the guidelines for testing were prepared and we could start playing like crazy. Make screenshots, answer questions, carry out fierce discussions, introduce corrections, update the file. Repeat 1000 times.
It’s Easter but the project team is still playing, testing and correcting, without getting any sleep whatsoever. Everybody wants the final version to be polished and free of errors. We’re still wondering, is it worth it? We don’t know that. We shall see next week. What we know for sure is that the experience we got in the meanwhile won’t be wasted!
Have a happy Easter,
PM
