We can’t crunch like that again, says Chair boss

The studio that built Infinity Blade 2 was subjected to a brutal crunch phase that its co-founder, Donald Mustard, promises will not be repeated.

Chair Entertainment boss Mustard said that completing the Infinity Blade 2 project required “to just death march kill ourselves” for the last three months of the project.

“I mean guys are just working so many hours, doing so much, and that’s not really good, I think, for the longevity of our studio,” he told Gamasutra.

“It’s not Epic’s style. We don’t look at that like that’s a good thing at all,” he added.

Chair, owned by Epic Games, kicked into full production of Infinity Blade 2 in the middle of May. Six months later it was demonstrated on stage at Apple’s iPhone 4S press conference. The title is today available on Apple’s App Store.

Mustard said the toilsome push to complete Infinity Blade 2 came from a genuine passion within the studio to finish the project.

“It happens when it’s that short of a development cycle. Stuff happens so fast. And so we definitely won’t do that again. It’s not worth the cost,” he added.

“I would rather take an extra two or three months than burn the guys out, or burn even me out. It doesn’t allow enough time to sit there and let the game breathe.”

Elsewhere in the Gamasutra interview, Mustard discusses iterative game design and shorter development cycles.