Dhruin
SasqWatch
CD Projekt has translated five blog entries from various staffers to put up at IGN. I suspect these were meant to be out before The Witcher's release but got lost in the crunch time described below by designer Katarzyna Kuczyñska. The official site has a list of the blog entries on this page and here's that sample:
More information.Today I’d like to tell you about the dark side of game designer’s work (and also every other person in our team). This dark side can be reduced to only two short words: crunch time. Crunch time is a period of time (usually towards the end of the project) when everyone is forced to work more intensively, stay after hours and give as much as they can in order to finish the game on time (keeping proper quality at the same time).
Our crunch time started in June, and finished towards the end of September – full four months. For me (and probably for my colleagues as well) it was really difficult time. I started working everyday around 9am and left the studio at 7pm. I was at home after 8pm. On Saturdays I used to finish around 3pm, so I had just enough time to have a bit of rest before the next working week. It was tough – I can’t deny it. There were times when I was leaving the studio and saw many of my colleagues not even starting to go home and then I got e-mails from them sent at 3, 5 or even 8 in the morning! Sometimes, when I came to the studio in the morning, I found Karol sleeping at his desk. Then he woke up, drank his coffee and got back to work. Borys’ wife gave birth to a baby daughter and few days later I saw him sleeping under his office desk. Many of us put a lot of effort and our private lives into the project in order for “The Witcher” to be a good and polished game and that our fans wouldn’t have to wait another year for the premiere.