How do you keep mistakes from eating up your time?

[Funnyguts]

When there's a problem with your game (or whatever you happen to be working on at the time), how do you make sure it doesn't take away the time you had planned to create new things? How does one budget for mistakes?

[LateWhiteRabbit]

When there's a problem with your game (or whatever you happen to be working on at the time), how do you make sure it doesn't take away the time you had planned to create new things? How does one budget for mistakes?

In my experience, one doesn't. Even in professional environments, everything runs over schedule, and while mistakes are time budgeted for, never ENOUGH time is budgeted. In the end, you have to make do, cut features or assets to make ship date, or let the mistakes ship in the final product.

[AnthonyHJ]

You add a contingency to your time-scales. I recommend adding 50%-100% on top of any schedule you write, because things will go wrong. When I used to be a salaried dev, our CEO always budgeted for at least a 50% contingency and we were seasoned pros...

These days, I tend to work out how long something should take, then double it. I tend to deliver early and clients like that, but little last-minute changes before they'll sign off ("can you change it so it says 'you' instead of 'the player' to make it feel more immediate") have made me glad I keep the contingency in...

In my experience, one doesn't. Even in professional environments, everything runs over schedule, and while mistakes are time budgeted for, never ENOUGH time is budgeted. In the end, you have to make do, cut features or assets to make ship date, or let the mistakes ship in the final product.

Yeah... Bugs left in games... I could tell a few stories about that...

Just make sure you fix them later on. Indies can't get away with them as easily as big publishers.

[Guerin78]

In general, if you still have new things to work on, you don't. Finish your first draft, and then worry about fixing things in the revision process. Not only does that mean you'll have a finished, if unpolished, game sooner, but it also means you'll have the extra experience from all the new things you've done.

The only time I'd make an exception to that is if you have a bug in your code that's making part of your game inaccessible--either because your game crashes, or because a check isn't working the way it's supposed to. Those will obviously need fixed so that you can see how everything after that point looks.

Edit: I just realized, reading the other responses, that there are two other questions you could be asking:

"When do I start working on my next project?"
I would personally say, "As soon as you're done your first draft." Treat revision completely separately from creating new material, and set aside time for both, either in separate time blocks on the same day, or alternating days--whatever works for you. You'll probably have to experiment a bit.

"When do I treat my current project as done?"
This is a matter of personal preference, and how you treat VN creation. Many people treat it as being a close relative of print novels--if you're one of them, my advice would be "find an editor, and stop when your editor runs out of suggestions for you." It's very hard to be objective about your own work--there are parts you'll love that other people won't, and there will be parts that you hate that other people will love.

On the other hand, I come from the software development side of things. It's not at all uncommon for a piece of software to continue being updated for years after release, as the creator(s) think of new things they want to add or fix. In this case, I'd say it's a matter of paying attention to your audience--if there are still bug reports or feature requests coming in, then as long as you still have an interest, you can keep updating. But once again, this is revision--you want to keep creating new things at the same time.

[Destiny]

It's easy for me.
I always just do one thing a day.
I spend a whole thing on painting and - if I make a mistake there - then I will correct that while the paint day is still on.
But should I go to bed and I wanted to script then, then I will script.
Fun thing is, that mistakes go away better once you make a break and look at them later anyways ^^

My shedule is kind of good to organize because of that and makes it possible to say stuff like "Screenshots will come around middle next month", simply because I can see how many time I have till then for the art and can count that up. If there happens to be a huge problem (like my broken LightBox last weekend), then I can say "Sorry, will be a week later", but I can keep it precicely