I have to agree with the other people commenting on this, the risks are really quite calculated..:-)
The period leading up to starting the game project involved working on technical prototypes and doing market research to find a good game to develop. If you are going to spend 1-2 years of your life on something, you might as well plan a bit ahead.
However, working in a startup company does amplify things (I really loved that phrase). What you do from moment to moment matters a lot, you have to be really focused so you can prioritize between the hundreds of open tasks you have.
Actually there were several other projects that influenced the design originally: Project Space Station, EOS, Millenium 2.2, Deuteros, Moonbase etc. As such, originality is a tough question. None of the above mentioned games concentrate on the flow simulation or 3D building. But these concepts are hardly original in themselves either. In my opinion most indies are best served by concentrating primarily on usability and gameplay, and only secondarily on originality.
I would like to expand on the article somewhat. Because of the very high interrelation of the content production and the programming effort, XP as a whole was unsuitable for the project. It didn't matter that it actually worked well for a small subset, the content and code dependencies made the two impossible to separate.
Again, I had previous (positive) non-related industry experience in using XP, so what we are talking about is defining the correct domain where XP is applicable.
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I have to agree with the other people commenting on this, the risks are really quite calculated .. :-)
The period leading up to starting the game project involved working on technical prototypes and doing market research to find a good game to develop. If you are going to spend 1-2 years of your life on something, you might as well plan a bit ahead.
However, working in a startup company does amplify things (I really loved that phrase). What you do from moment to moment matters a lot, you have to be really focused so you can prioritize between the hundreds of open tasks you have.
Actually there were several other projects that influenced the design originally: Project Space Station, EOS, Millenium 2.2, Deuteros, Moonbase etc. As such, originality is a tough question. None of the above mentioned games concentrate on the flow simulation or 3D building. But these concepts are hardly original in themselves either. In my opinion most indies are best served by concentrating primarily on usability and gameplay, and only secondarily on originality.
I would like to expand on the article somewhat. Because of the very high interrelation of the content production and the programming effort, XP as a whole was unsuitable for the project. It didn't matter that it actually worked well for a small subset, the content and code dependencies made the two impossible to separate. Again, I had previous (positive) non-related industry experience in using XP, so what we are talking about is defining the correct domain where XP is applicable.