Breaking The Wheel

Video Game Statistics featured image of three scientists talking
– Posted Under: Game Planning With Science!, Operations, Production 2 Comments

Video Game Statistics: A Primer – Game Planning With Science! Part 3

In parts 1 and 2 of “Game Planning With Science!” I covered the basics of process management and capacity charts. Now, in Part 3, I’m going to step away from direct operations management to discuss some basic concepts of statistics. Riveting, I know. But also essential if you want to be able to forecast accurately and confidently. There will be some heavy lifting in this post, but hang in there. A better understanding of statistics will change the way you see and treat your own data. It will also make you a more informed consumer of the information the rest of the world vomits at you every day.

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Character Art Pipeline Capacity Charts featured image of a scientist with test tubes
– Posted Under: Art, Game Planning With Science!, Management, Operations, Practical Guides, Production 6 Comments

Character Art Pipeline Capacity Charts – Game Planning With Science! Part 2

In Part 1 of Game Planning With Science, I covered the fundamentals of operations management: critical paths, bottlenecks, and Little’s Law. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, I suggest you do. Unless you’re familiar with the equations behind those concepts, Part 2 will be a little tricky to follow. But if you’re up to speed, read on. In Part 2, I’m going to walk you through how to assemble a capacity chart. You can use capacity charts to optimize your character art pipelines and add resources where they will do the most good.

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Video Game Art Pipelines featured image: a scientist
– Posted Under: Art, Game Planning With Science!, Operations, Production 14 Comments

Video Game Art Pipelines – Game Planning With Science! Part 1

The fundamental tools of operations science (also called decision science) were designed with factories and warehouses in mind. But they are easily applicable to video game art asset pipelines. In this post, I’ll walk you through the basics of how operation science looks at pipelines, called “process flows” in operations speak.

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