Great story about saving a doomed project with a… selective presentation.
“Tom started up the game, and started flying around, trying to avoid the obvious issues (like shooting your own wings off, or the planes flying backward).
“One of the execs threw out a tough question, designed to show how far over budget we were. Tom put down the joystick, and hit the `cool cam’ button. Then he turned around to answer the question. While he was answering the question, every eye in the room was on the screen as one amazing scene showed after another. I looked at the execs, and I swear, some of them were gaping.”
“I swear, that camera saved the project.”
Reminds me of the vertical slice Valve used to buy another year of development time for Half Life. Your project might be trouble, but there might still be enough small moments of greatness to tell a compelling story. And that might buy the time to bring the whole product to that level.
Can’t find those bits? Ruthlessly cut until you either find them or have a blank slate again.
