#my project is split across 20+ documents which seemed like a good idea when I started

[moon-jellie]

I'm going crazy I could swear I wrote this whole piece the other day about one of my characters reacting to the other going to rehab and I can't find it for the life of me

[theastrophilearchitect]

I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.

[patrycjazawisza-blog]

First Week Summary

I decided the best way to document my journey throughout this internship is by doing a weekly summary. As I am unsure on whether I will be doing something different or fairly similar tasks every day, I came to the conclusion the best way is to briefly write a diary entry each day but collate them altogether into a weekly summary.  Additionally, at the start of each week I will set myself goals that I would like to accomplish by the end of the week. This should help me to break down the report and convert one big task into smaller and more manageable tasks. This method helps with staying focused and staying motivated as it is a way of seeing step-by-step how a certain project will be completed within the given timeframe.

Summary of the first week

Meeting with Professor Donna Lee and Christian Spence.

Prior to starting my internship, I had a meeting with Professor Donna Lee and Christian Spence to agree on the specifics such as when I will officially begin and what kind of tasks, I will undertake and to find out general information regarding where I will be based and who I am supposed to report to.

The initial discussion was about the different projects that are taking place that I could be a part of; FinTech, MMU survey and political approach to do with the Mayor’s decisions. I have been advised to pick one or two of these areas but predominantly work on one project as there is so much depth within each area and so many opportunities that it can be hard to focus on more than one project to be able to achieve real engagement and progression. I am edging towards FinTech the most at the moment, as I would be able to see it through until the end as it is due to be finishing around the end of July. However, the political project seems very interesting too as it is something I have not done before. But a topic which has always been of interest; it is the blend of politics and policy alongside economics. All of these projects involve the use of quantitative and mathematical skills such as data modelling and forecasting, which I have done during the first year of my degree. The meeting lasted around 15-20 minutes with the conclusion of arranging my induction the following Monday where I will meet the team and begin contributing to a project of my choice.

I was quite nervous prior to the meeting; I was unsure what to expect however as soon as I met my supervisors (Christian and Donna) I felt at ease as they were extremely helpful and explained everything very well. After researching Future Economies and the work they do beforehand I was very impressed and eager to be able to participate in the research and different projects the team are involved with. The choice of areas I was presented with that I could be a part of was really interesting and very broad, however I feel as though FinTech could be the most suited project as it is something I have not looked into before and I would be able to see the project right until the end. From what I have been researched into FinTech it is the connection of finance and technology (Zavolokina et al., 2016). Although the sole purpose of applying to the Third Term Programme was based on doing an activity related to my degree, I decided to be open minded and choose a topic which sounds interesting and gives me a lot of different research opportunities. Finance relates to economics quite well however; technology will be a brand-new field I will be exploring and learning about. Furthermore, the specific research report is on the skills gap within the industry sector of FinTech, thus there is a relation of economics as it will involve research into the labour market.

I am very excited to start my internship for around 4-5 weeks. On the other hand, I am slightly nervous about what kind of workload and tasks I will be given. I am ready to face this challenge and do something that is very different and completely out of my comfort zone. I am still unsure on what exactly I will be doing in terms of whether I will be working within a team or on my own and how flexible or inflexible the work I will be doing is going to be. Hopefully, once I start, I will have all the answers to my questions and settle in quickly.

Goals for the week

General research on FinTech industry [achieved]

Find reliable sources [achieved]

Begin drafting a plan (introduction) [achieved]

Day 1: 

My induction day started with a longer catch-up meeting with Christian who briefed me on the project and explained what was expected of me. I have been given my own lanyard to enter the office and a desk where I will be situated for the next four weeks. I have been advised to be in everyday, but due to my commute Christian suggested I have one day off a week to work from home and take a break from the commute. The project that I have been set to do is a written literature report based around the issues of the FinTech and the skills gap. From my own research it has become very apparent that employees with skills such as blockchain abilities, programming skills, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence are in immense demand within the FinTech industry (Iyer, 2018). Additionally, I was introduced to Christian’s research assistant who would be overseeing my report and whom was also working on the FinTech report. Together we brainstormed a basic outline plan of how to structure the report and what to include, as well as looking at the brief introductory draft of the main report to give me an idea of what I should be aiming to achieve. We also discussed the different characteristics of the FinTech industry to establish the essential key facts I should know about the industry.

After the meeting, I spent the rest of my day researching FinTech to understand the basics and familiarise myself with the topic to start briefly planning the beginning of my report. The main focus is on the skills gap; however, it is also important to demonstrate how the skills gap has evolved and what kind of new technologies led to the rise of demand for new these new skills needed within the FinTech industry.

As this was my first day at the office, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people I have met, but I found comfort in seeing that everyone was very welcoming and offered help when needed in the near future. I have realised that in regard to my previous questions mentioned, this project will be quite independent, and I will have to organise my time well so that I finish the whole report by the end of the five weeks. Although I feel at ease in having a fundamental plan and direction of the literature report the topic itself is very limited in the information that is out there. There is no set book or set page to find specific information therefore some of the research I have found comes across as very subjective which does not correspond with the information published by other sources. The next couple of days I will dedicate to sole research on the topic of FinTech to confidently understand all the terminology and gain the ability to use it in my literature report correctly.

Day: 2

I am continuing with working on my part of the research project. So far, I have made good progress with finding good references and making a detailed plan on what I will write about. One of my weaknesses sometimes is not having a thorough plan therefore I am working hard on making sure my plan is well detailed. I am dedicating today to planning further and start writing tomorrow. This means I have nearly accomplished the first two goals of the week. I have done a lot of background research on the FinTech industry, learning about the evolutionary stages of the emergence of FinTech (Arner et al., 2016).

My plan is split up into four sections. Section one is focused on a summary of technology trends in the industry. From what I have already researched on the topic earlier on today; technology trends are found to be the cause of the shift of skills demanded by the industry as new tech demands new skills to be able to use it as efficiently as possible. The second section covers the existing skills gap and what problems employers are faced with in terms of what kind of skills are needed the most but also how to retrain current employees in order to successfully use and implement new technology that is available. Section three and four are focused on what kind of courses Universities provide and whether that will be enough to bridge the skills gap between employees and employers. With this kind of detailed plan, I can confirm I have achieved the third goal of the week which means I am on target, however each section within the plan will need to be detailed with plenty of good and reliable sources and references.

Day: 3 + 4

I have started writing section one of the report and have found it quite challenging. Although I have found a lot of sources which I can use, I have not come across a lot of literature reviews surrounding the subject of the technology trends within FinTech industry which would be the best kind of source for references. However, I have learned and understood the concept of blockchain and the impact it has on the industry as well as Automation Industry 4.0. The current debate surrounding the automation of industry shows a clear division between those who believe automation will result in thousands of job losses to those who believe automation of the industry is the right move as there are certain things a machine cannot do compared to a human being. Therefore, those skills can be used elsewhere rather than wasted on a task a machine could do (Newman, 2018).

Day: 5

My fifth day has been spent working from home, still focusing on the first section of the report. I have around 500 words on section one and will aim to get another 500 written on the other aspects of technology trends (Big Data and contactless payment). I am pleased with the overall outcome so far and have really enjoyed the independence of writing this report. The experience has been similar to writing assignments during the first year of University. However, the challenging aspect is writing about a topic I had no prior knowledge of beforehand. Whereas with assignments it is usually on a topic we have learned about and already possess a substantial amount of information on. This meant that the initial stage of research felt a bit daunting as there was so much reading to get through. Every day this week consisted of a lot of background research and reading on top of planning and writing the report which has been quite intense as the working days are quite long alongside commuting. The freedom I have been given at Future Economies with my working hours has helped enormously as I am able to work from home one day a week. This has definitely helped with my ability to adjust to commuting during the week. It has been a good introduction into seeing what working and commuting life could look like in the future too.

References

Arner, D. W., Barberis. J. and Buckley, R. P. (2016) The Evolution of FinTech: A New Post-Crisis Paradigm. Heinonline. [Online] [Last Accessed 5th July 2019] https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/geojintl47&div=41&id=&page=

Iyer, S. (2018) The 5 Most In-Demand Skills In The FinTech Industry. Instarem. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] Available: https://www.instarem.com/blog/the-5-most-in-demand-skills-in-the-fintech-industry/

Newman, D. (2018) The Digitally Transformed Workforce: How to Upskill And Retrain To Retain Talent. Forbes. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2018/03/11/the-digitally-transformed-workforce-how-to-upskill-and-retrain-to-retain-talent/#6f634de91d6f

Zavolokina, L., Dolata, M. and Schwabe G. (2016) Digital Innovation at the Crossroads. AIS eLibrary. [Online] [Last accessed 5th July 2019] Available: https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/DigitalInnovation/Presentations/12/

[aurelliocheek]

The Making of Frostpunk: Interview with 11 bit studios

Dress warmly for our story about an extraordinary game.

Frostpunk is world’s first society ­survival game. Developed and ­published by 11 bit studios, the ­Polish makers of the fantastic This War of Mine, ­Frostpunk was released 2018 for PC and 2019 for consoles. Gamers around the world celebrated Frostpunk for its outstanding atmosphere, great steampunk look, and addictive build-up sim gameplay with moral choices to be made that sometimes make the player’s throat closed. A few days ago 11 bit studios released the new DLC The Last Autumn, a big expansion with a prequel scenario, new technology trees and resources, new buildings and a lots more. For our cover story a few developers wrote excellent articles about the unusual genre mix, the social aspects and the outstanding art design. In addition, Development & Art ­Director Przemyslaw Marszal, Development & Design ­Director Michal Drozdowski and Partnership Manager Pawel Miechowski took the time for a ­detailed interview. Let’s start with this!

Making Games: This War of Mine was a great success and instantly placed you on the international map of game developers. Instead of repeating the success with This War of Mine 2, you chose a completely different game and a completely new story instead. Isn’t that a bit crazy? Przemyslaw Marszal: It might seem like this when looking from a distance. But ­doing it the other way – making This War of Mine 2 right away would be much crazier. Why? Because, after the first one we were very ­tired. Especially tired emotionally. This game required so much attention to ­war-­related details, so much of this emotional understanding that it was just too much near the end of the development cycle. So sure – we felt that This War of Mine put us on the map in a very good spot to do a sequel. But at the same time, we felt we needed a change, and this feeling gained the upper hand. So we looked for the next topic. The one that, we thought at the ­beginning, could be less dramatic, less serious and harsh. The one that will let us think more about its core gameplay ­systems or its art style. That’s how we came up with an idea of steampunk city-builder. Yet, after about eight months of development, we started to understand that we just can’t do a game without a message, without a meaningful root that will be something we want to tell about. That’s how Frostpunk was born – a game about society adaptation in survival times. One more thing is crucial. Probably right now, I can say This War of Mine was an artistic statement touching the problems of civilians struggle during wartime. And in this sense, it was sort of a complete statement from us. We told what we wanted to tell regarding this particular problem and we felt that at that moment there was nothing meaningful we wanted to add to it.

How big has your team grown after This War of Mine? Przemyslaw Marszal: Just after the game release, not that much as I recall. But during the years after it started to change. This War of Mine was done by about 20 developers internally and Frostpunk during the next few years scaled the core team to around 45 people, but we also grew in other departments. Right now, we’re capable of doing three separate games with three separate teams. Before The Final Cut edition of This War of Mine, which released ­November last year, we still had a team ­doing working only on this project. We’re still be patching and tweaking the game, but most of those people moved to the new project. The second team is responsible for Frostpunk, and third the unannounced Project 8 game. We also have a publishing team, working on third-party titles, ­business ­development, and marketing teams or our own internal QA guys, because we also test in-house the games we’re publishing like Moonlighter or ­Children of Morta. All this accounts for about 125 people right now, but we still growing and moving into a new office in a building we bought in whole, probably in March.

What inspired you to do Frostpunk? Are you fans of the movies Snowpiercer or The Day After Tomorrow? Or did the infamous “year without summer” inspire you? Michał Drozdowski: I remember when we tried to figure out with Przemek on how to proceed after making our first prototype called Industrial. It was very economical, it was a steampunk-ish city-builder proto, so sort of what we liked it to be, but it lacked a lot in terms of motivation, message, and overall vision. What was quite intriguing is that each of us separately came with a very similar vision of a frost fighting society survival game at some point. My head was full of images of very strong-hearted men. Those people you could once find in a situation where nature is the ultimate obstacle and worst nightmare – people like sailors, mountaineers, whale hunters, oil-platform workers. It was mostly about this vision of those hardened people fighting for survival. Another question then will be how the frost and winter came in and took the rule? Well, we used to have pretty strong winters in Poland, and we know something about really cold weather. But winter seemed to be a great enemy, especially combined with the power of heat would have in that situation and a steam technology used to generate it. As you mentioned those movie titles – they were known to us, and particularly Snowpiercer is one hell of a movie. We all love it both for its world as well as being a very compact and metaphorical ­approach to society.

What was the initial idea behind Frostpunk‘s art direction? Przemyslaw Marszal: When we start ­prototyping a new project, we often ask ourselves: what we would like to hear from a player looking at a finished game? How would we like him to describe what he sees? So we set up a list of adjectives that we imagine would suit best that kind of description. And then try to think about how we could achieve that. What steps we need to take to get that kind of feeling from the players. For Frostpunk these adjectives were: cold, city, steampunk, seriously looking, with living society, victorian, looking like AAA game. Getting everything that working right at once in the actual game is like solving a puzzle. And coming to that result involves a lot of research, drawing and conceptualizing things. In general, a lot of trial and error processes. Plus there is one other ingredient – uniqueness. So the graphic not only must convey all the associations we want but also has its own unexpected and exciting bits. Bits like round circular ice hole with a huge generator in the centre or radial laid city.

Talking about the development process: What problems did you encounter in general and how did you deal with them? Michal Drozdowski: From my perspective, the biggest problems came up with a growing team. We doubled the size compared to our peak during This War of Mine production, and I think we were not fully aware of the consequences of this sudden growth. The problem that arose was communication. In previous smaller teams, we were used to having a lot of short daily conversations that made the game vision spread naturally across all team members. Keeping a healthy amount of design ­documents and a few occasional meetings was enough to make sure people understand what is happening and why it is happening. When the team sized changed dramatically, we realized that these measures were not enough. Some people still lacked knowledge about some important elements of the vision of the project or its creative directions. We had to make sure that we have a better communication ­process on our side. One that is more targeted at supplying the team with all the crucial information. Taking into account that saying something once, or having it written in a document rarely ensures that the subject can be considered as a ­piece of well-spread information.

Which design decisions would you have made differently in retrospect? Michal Drozdowski: I really don’t like to look into the past with that kind of ­approach. I think that every game we make is defined not only by the design itself but by the team and the time at which it was made. Because during that time we over­came many obstacles and made many hard decisions. There is always a great number of ideas or even partial design that ‘didn’t make it’ into the game for various reasons. But even if they did not appear in the game, there was a reason that something more important took their place. There is a time we feel the game is ready and complete. Of course, it can then evolve and change, which is great, but that first version, I consider it a closed chapter.

Which feature of the game are you particularly proud of? Michal Drozdowski: I tried to rephrase that question in my mind and ask myself that the whole time I spent working on Frostpunk. And there is one definitive answer – the team we build-up for this project. I mention it not only to give them credits for their skills, passion, and willpower but to stress that sometimes building a great team might be even harder than crafting a great game. In the end, it’s those people who make the vision change into a game you could release. Getting back to more particular features, I’m most proud of our narrative solutions. We were able to deliver a mix of systemic and emergent narrative mechanics combined with a more classical approach to storytelling. Finally, we got a game where each action and decision matters and adds both to the grand story of the player’s journey and the message we wanted to deliver.

What you can consider as the biggest thing the art department achieved during Frostpunk production? Przemyslaw Marszal: I must highlight two things. First, it is awesome when a lot of people that see a Frostpunk screen know immediately that this is Frostpunk. This uniqueness allowing for distilling this game in a split second from a lot of other games. A uniqueness that is clear to describe but also has its rules and magic. And the second thing – we really worked hard to connect art with gameplay in a lot of fields. I believe that we achieved this level of immersion in which gameplay and art are working as one entity, and deliver a bond absorbing players into one precisely defined mood during their play.

How satisfied are you with the reviews, the feedback from the community and the sales? Pawel Miechowski: Complaining is a national sport in Poland, so I should start with a set of complaints, but the reality is that the reception was fantastic and we have nothing to complain about. A massive part of the reviews was underlining the game’s original approach to the setting, gameplay, and its maturity. There were some 6s and 7s here and there, but we’re fully aware that this happens each time. We can’t just please every gamer out there because we are not making games for everyone but for a precisely chosen type of gamer. We know who our audience is. And the majority of the audience gave us great feedback, first with fantastically positive acclaim, and then by providing us tips and hints on how to improve Frostpunk further and develop expansions such as the Endless Mode. The only problem we had was that the first paid expansion – The Rifts – was a small one, is like an appetizer before the big one – The Last Autumn – and we didn’t communicate that clearly to the community. So the reception of The Rifts was not as good as we’d want, but then we communicated precisely what is our plan and now The Last Autumn is out with great acclaim from the players. And when it comes to sales – the game paid off in just two days after the ­release and it was more than four years ­development process so the financial ­success was fantastic. Sometime last year the game crossed 1.5 million copies sold and is still selling very well.

How did you finance the development? Pawel Miechowski: Initially, the game was called Industrial, and the funding of the ­prototype was granted by the Creative ­Europe program. After it was made, we knew there was a huge potential, and we’ve decided to invest our resources into the game. It was roughly three million ­Euros of our funds, spent on the development in over three years during which, in the course of numerous iterations, the game morphed from Industrial into Frostpunk.

The (lack of) state support for the games ­industry is a much-discussed topic in Germany. Tell us about the situation in Poland? Pawel Miechowski: I’ve heard now there is a big program in Germany to support kick-starting studios and prototypes of the games, so I’d like to congratulate the German industry for making this discussion to happen. In Poland, things changed in a good direction over the last years. We also got nothing special six or seven years ago except some small grants for exhibiting at international shows. Now there are dedicated programs for R&D, programs for supporting exhibiting at the shows so practically every indie studio that has at least the will and some own funds can participate in shows like gamescom, PAX or ChinaJoy. From time to time there are programs to kickstart prototype development but those are not big ones. All in all the state support is solid. However, there are always things to improve, like the higher game development education-oriented things. There’s a lot to do in this field.

Was it difficult to port Frostpunk to the consoles? Why did it take so long? Pawel Miechowski: We did what we’ve ­aimed for and made Frostpunk play on those platforms like a natively ­developed console experience. To achieve that our team redesigned the UI and control scheme from scratch. The whole system went through five iterations during the ­development process and nailing it right, and getting the right game performance on consoles, was more important for us than finishing the game earlier. The decision about the delay was the right one from today’s perspective. The game is doing really well on this sort-of uncharted market for strategy games because we think this genre on consoles is still a bit of a blue ocean. There aren’t many of them, and we believe Frostpunk: Console Edition could be seen as a benchmark for those, especially in terms of the player-friendly interface. Also, we get a great amount of support both from Microsoft on Xbox and Sony on PlayStation, so we feel they see there is space for the games like ours.

With your publishing program, you support in some way other indie studios. ­Please tell us about that. Pawel Miechowski: We have a special philosophy of creation that can be underlined as meaningful entertainment. Games that leave a mark in the player’s minds, make them think about them even when thy not playing it. At some point, we’ve come to the conclusion that there are indie games out there who share the same philosophy and it would be great to create an eco­system of devs making those games with an extra mark, like ourselves. These devs need help on the market to succeed and this is where we come in with our know-how and resources. Primarily, we are a development studio, so we know exactly what the developer needs. We have the experience because we’ve been in the trenches, so to speak. Starting the role of the publisher and creating this ecosystem for the devs was a natural business direction. 11 bit studios can provide everything a developer needs – funds, marketing, QA. But we need to fall in love with your game. It has to ignite a spark that we truly understand. We’re a picky publisher but we consider it our mission. And when you look at the ­latest release like Moonlighter or Children of Morta, this proves we’re doing it the right way. Proof for that is the way those games were reviewed, the feedback from the community, how they performed sales-wise and how many awards they won.

In a nutshell: What are the three most important rules that an indie studio should follow? Przemyslaw Marszal: I think it’s hard to say if we are still indie devs. But looking back – what helped us a lot was, in the first place, understanding where in our ideas the value for players lay. And why players were not only paying for our games but more importantly also giving us the time to dive into our fantasies. Being brave and looking for our own way, trying to find this unique personality of the studio was the second thing. And thirdly, having an awesome, honest and friendly team that understands the goals of 11bit Studios as a company and treating them as there were theirs own. Michal Drozdowski: I’ll add something from the design point of view. The first thing is knowing what you want to achieve. All great games have a good strong focus – a few things that are critical for them and at which they aim to be the best. This focus is crucial to make further decisions during development. Having a very clear vision of the game you’re making, keeping consistency during design, production and finally, sales are the key aspects in delivering an outstanding experience to the players. This may sound as being a bit obvious, but it’s actually one of the hardest aspects. Be able to judge what are the very things that shape the personality of your game and treat all the remaining ones just as a nice to have. During prototyping or developing new features, you may easily find yourself straying from the path, so make sure to cross-check several times during the project that your main vision is still your goal.

What comes next from 11 bit studios? Przemyslaw Marszal: You know we just can’t tell. Yet what we can guarantee that whatever we do we want it to be a huge challenge for us. We won’t settle, we will push ourselves to achieve new experiences, emotions, messages, and craft more meaningfulness into our games. We will struggle while doing it, swearing and cursing on our ambitious decisions. Yet in the end, we will be satisfied and we hope players will be too.

Przemyslaw Marszal Development & Art Director

Art director and co-founder of 11 bit studios. He’s responsible for the art direction of all company titles, as well as managing development teams together with Michal. With almost 20 years of experience in game development and many games shipped under his belt, he always tries to work on titles never imagined before.

  Michal Drozdowski Development & Design Director

He is a creative director and a co-founder of 11 bit studios. He’s responsible for the game design, recently for Frostpunk and all company titles as well as leading, supervising and managing studio’s internal and external design teams. He’s designing gameplay in games for about 20 years now.

  Pawel Miechowski Partnership Manager

Working in game development since the late 90s. In the early 2000s landed in Metropolis Software and worked there as a writer and PR manager. Later in CD Projekt Group and from 2010 at 11 bit studios, initially as a writer and PR guy and now working as a partnerships manager.

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