Saturday, December 12, 2009

Life lessons

Things I learned from last time I started a small business:

1. Build your infrastructure as needed. Don't jump right into double - ledger accounting if this is your first time. Do everything in an Excel spreadsheet, then grow into a more complicated system as your business needs it.

2. Keep track of the pennies as they're consumed. Even if you really don't need to know that on trip X out to see a client you spent 1.50 on parking, that will make you more aware of and careful with your margins.

3. The goal is not to be profitable. The goal is to be 15 - 20% or more profitable, even in a bad-case scenario. If you have that as your planning goal, you'll probably at least stay afloat if things don't match your plans.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Week 12: Witches of Minidoka

Witches of Minidoka is an experimental project made from scratch in about 30 hours.

Week 12: Witches of Minidoka

Source flash file is available here.

There were a lot of collaborators this week. While I handled some of the design, engineering, and writing duties, Adam Nakama also helped out with design and writing. Margaret Kelley and Russen Guggemos handled the introductory photography.

In addition, Daniel Cook is responsible for the "2D Circle Graphic" environment art. Phillipp Lenssen made the character sprites. And Dinodroid! made the chippy tune "my droid is in sleep mode2." Thank you all for putting your work in the Creative Commons!

BTW, Week 11 was lost in a hard drive crash. Which was a shame: it was a great game made in an actual week.