When Girls Procrastinate

Games for Girls, a competition hosted by UIUC, just had its deadline the week before last. I'm a part of Cornell's team, and our entry this year is a game named "Daruka".

Let me be the first to tell you that this game is sub par. Let me also tell you that out of our 5 teammates, I was the one who dropped the ball. We had two artists, two programmers, and a musician. Sounds like a dream team, so what happened?

I was busy... really busy. 26 credits of busy. But, like a good programmer, I pulled a few all nighters to get the game into shape. Of course, by that time, the artists had put together all the necessary artwork for 6 full levels of gameplay. And the two programmers, mistakenly, turned into level designers.


The result? There are 5 levels with great artwork and terrible gameplay mechanics. Not that our gameplay was absolutely riveting to begin with. But it's way more important to have solid gameplay than game content. That's practically rule 1 and we lost sight of it.


I learned something else too. I like to work hard (and play hard). But when I'm spread this thin, the work that I do just isn't as astounding as it could be. I'm sure you'll be glad to know that I'm only enrolled in 11 credits so far for next semester. And don't worry, there's much more awesome stuff on the way. In the meantime, sit back and take a look at the awesome work from our artists. Good stuff.