Save Points: Productivity for Game Devs

Most unfinished games didn't fail on talent. They stalled on Tuesdays: no plan for the evening, a task too big to start, a week that vanished. Save Points is a 12-page field guide to nine small systems that fix those Tuesdays.

In a game, a save point is where progress stops being at risk. Each chapter gives you one: a habit you set up once and keep. The book follows Kit, a developer with a day job and ten free hours a week, from the first plan to the launch of their game, Ferrous.

The nine save points

• Count your real hours: a one-week log, and a game sized for the week you have.
• One board: four columns, and never more than two cards in progress.
• Tasks you can finish tonight: two hours or less per card, and your own estimate multiplier.
• The weekly loop: plan on Sunday, build, export a build every week, look back in ten minutes.
• Protected blocks: 60 to 90 minutes, the same days, phone in another room.
• Park the ideas: new ideas join only by replacing something, plus a feature-freeze date.
• Automate the boring parts: one command to export and upload with butler or SteamCMD.
• Make progress visible: a session calendar, monthly GIFs, and stopping in the middle.
• Rest is on the schedule: signs of running down, and rest written into the plan.

The last page is a printable weekly sheet that covers five of the save points on one page.

Details

• 12-page A4 PDF in English, text selectable and searchable.
• Works with paper, Trello, Notion, Codecks or a text file. No special software needed.
• Written and illustrated with AI assistance, then fact-checked against the sources named in the book. All images are original renders, original pixel art or CC0 material: no screenshots of commercial games.