Best Practices for the Worst Games

Concept: Practical advice for real design situations. No ivory tower. No "if schedule allows". How do you make the best game possible when the situation isn't the best? For now, I'm mostly thinking from an inexperienced Lead Designer position, but let's see where the idea takes me.

1. Stop Waiting for Better People. I've seen many new leads beg to have only the best people working with them, both in their department and in others. It ain't gonna happen. As my six year old learned in day care "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." There's nothing wrong with asking for greatness, but don't base your plans on it. Learn the abilities and weaknesses of the people you do have. Get them the training they need to become better. Motivate them to actually try. Scale you plans around what they can and can't do.

2. Cut Early and Cut Often. Start the project off with a brainstorm phase, where any idea is accepted and encouraged. Very soon after that, cut off 'pie in the sky' dreaming, and cut it off hard. Design down to the bone. If a feature is not absolutely necessary to make the game work, cut it as quickly as possible. If a feature would make the game better but is costly, cut it. If you know something would work, but the Lead Programmer doesn't think it's even possible, argue with him for a couple hours. Then cut it if he doesn't see the light. And when you cut, cut. None of this "we'll add it back in later" or "this is a 'maybe' feature" stuff. Don't kid yourself. It's gone and it's never coming back.

...more of these in the future. Hopefully enough to turn it into a coherent set of guidelines rather than just a series of tidbits.