Crunch

Crunch is a term that originally referred to employees in professional game development taking on compulsory and consistent overtime, usually toward the end of a project or as resources ran out.

The term is often used in a broader sense to refer to generally unhealthy development practices around time management, applicable to VNdev-typical micro teams or solo development projects.

Avoiding Crunch

It is vital to avoid crunch, in order to lower the risk of burnout. For team sizes typical in VN development, or solo teams, this can look like:

• Making sure the scope of your game is reasonable for the amount of time & resources you have to complete it. If in doubt, cut scope. You can always add it back in later.
• Making a timeline with clear and achievable goals
• Avoiding sweeping creative or technical changes to the core of your game in the middle of development

Crunch culture has become a normalised practice in AAA game development. As smaller developers, it's important to work towards and maintain a healthy working culture, when slimmer resource margins and managerial inexperience can make it even more difficult.

Crunch and Game Jams

Crunch can become common in the setting of visual novel jams, often made worse by the strict deadline and the added pressure of watching other teams or developers working at the same time.

Some amount of crunch-like work is normal in a jam setting, and comes with the territory of making a game in a short period of time. You may be hurrying to finish a few elements at the end, but you shouldn't be pulling all-nighters or damaging your health in order to upload your game in time.

It's important to plan with this in mind by not overscoping your game's content, and planning to finish your game before the actual deadline, allowing space for not only beta testing but uploading and submitting your jam game. Things often go wrong during the submission process, so you should budget that time into your schedule in advance.