The Independent Games Festival -- just the name gives me a feeling of awe. It's something that game developers participate in, something that I have long aspired to compete in.

I sometimes thought that I wouldn't ever get there. Then I started The Thief's Tale.

It started with an issue, the same problem as a lot of other students out there have: You know what you want to do (get a job making video games), but the jobs all want some previous experience. How does one get the experience, without the job?

The Thief's Tale started as that, a game to release online when it was done to show that I was capable of building a video game. So slowly, I built an engine and an editor to make assets. Then in July, I saw that there was a Student Competition for the Independent Games Festival, and it changed everything. I knew what I had to do. I had four months, an engine built from scratch, and a need. But as I found, if The Thief's Tale was ever going to succeed, I was going to need a lot more than that.

What Went Right
1. Good people. Finding good people that have a drive to do something great makes all the difference, and the team that made The Thief's Tale comprises some of the hardest working and most dedicated people I have ever known.

One example is the animator, Anguel Bogoev. During crunch time, I had a habit of staying up late to fix issues and builds. He would email the art as soon as he had it so I could install it in the game. I also got into the habit of checking in the morning, and it was then that I discovered how dedicated he really was -- he was sending me art after I went to sleep. Bogoev was often up even later than I was to make sure the game had the art that it needed.

Another example is the tester, Kevin O'Neill, who asked me if he could join. I got him a build to test. As the level designer, I always like to watch players play the game for the first time so I can see where they have trouble. When I first watched O'Neill play, I thought that he was confused. He jumped at all the walls, jumped at the ceiling, and started pressing keys that weren't supposed to do anything. Then it dawned on me: He's trying to break the game. He's testing everything and double checking it. Whenever he did find something, he would draw me a map to let me know exactly where the problem was located. If I could have testers like him for every project, I'd be a very happy designer indeed.

If the people I worked with hadn't cared as much as they did, we probably would not have been able to do finish the project in the time we had. Most teams would say, "That's impossible. It can't be done." Yet with this team, the deadline was a challenge to be conquered. Even better, they all seemed to want to continue working on the game. I'm consistently impressed at every turn by the whole team.

2. Communication and crunch time. For aspiring producers out there, here's the best advice I can give you: Communication is everything.

If you don't know who is working on what and when it will be done, you can't do anything. During the final week of development, communication became this great, wide highway. Messages got through, attachments didn't disappear into the ether, and replies were quick. As producer, I knew when things were being done and could plan ahead for things to happen at a certain time. Communication worked.

Even better, getting constant emails let the team know that none of them were alone, which kept morale high. During the last few days, an encouraging email or one that contained some really good work was never further than 15 minutes away. Nobody works in a vacuum and the key to letting people know that is constant updates and emails.