Pitch and Postmortem (with video!)

We wrapped up this week with, what we felt, was a successful pitch. Monday's pitch felt a little flat, so we went and improved on a few of its deficits over the next couple days. In the end, our game showed much better in prototype then it did during the initial pitch, which is something I need to work on (more on that below). However, without further ado, here is the trailer I cut together for our game:

Afterwards we held a postmortem to ascertain where we ended up. Here's how our timeline ended up:

It takes a fairly obvious shape (almost a sine wave) when you think about it: hitting a few lows before achieving a decent number of highs. It also turns out I learned a few things talking about the project. Something I thought we did very well with (and the rest of the team agreed) was our design meetings. Design needs to be done quick in this format, but we all felt that we were able to be flexible, compromise, and combine our respective ideas in something that was tailored to the client. No one felt like they were slighted by design decisions or left out of the loop. Our Facebook group probably went a long way in helping communication, especially early on when we weren't sure who had texting or a chat client.

After the design highs we hit a few lows. Looking back, we all severely underestimated the difficulty of the project. Initially, we felt that, at tops, a week would be needed to get the basic prototype together. However, the engineers felt flustered by the lack of documentation for Moai, and it took a week just to get ducks in a row. Something to look at in the future would be to schedule smaller tasks the first week so as to allow the engineers to grow accustomed to the engine and learn some basics while churning out a few easier tasks. This might allow us to prioritize a little better as well. Tasks we thought would take a few hours ended up taking a couple days, so knowing what those are and tackling them early would save some stress later on. As a producer, I definitely need to attack issues with art outsourcing (or sound outsourcing) earlier. It seemed like I would have plenty of time to get some things done, but there were always unexpected road blocks. It turned out alright this time, but next time it might not, and having a few extra days to get things in order might make all the difference.

Towards the end, everything came together. We got things we needed done as the engineers worked with a better understanding of the engine, and art finally came together thanks to Sagar. I made an initial pitch that swung far too plain on the pendulum, but came back pretty well (with the help of the team) for the final pitch on Wednesday. We got a playable demo working, on both pc and iOS. Once we got a firm grasp on the project the last week, while hectic, was much better planned out. In the future, I'll be looking to get that mountain climbed a little earlier. Crunch time isn't fun for anyone.

The last thing I'll say is that I'm sorry to see the team break up. As a first experience, I don't think I could have asked for a better team than Sagar, Triston, and Yuntao. All of them are very capable engineers and good designers. At least now I'll have some engineers to ask for second opinions (and maybe snag some artwork from Sagar if I need to).

Week 3: Setbacks and Hitting Goals

We started week 3 off a little behind. Unfortunately, engineering hitting a couple snags over the long weekend and we didn't quite hit our projections. I went in and reworked the upcoming week's sprint, accounting for extra tasks and re-configuring estimates. We did have to drop a few things into the backlog, but they were all window dressing and not any core gameplay functionality.

As the week went a long, we picked up steam, knocking out tasks fairly quickly. The holiday threw us off a bit as well, but we made up for it by meeting on Tuesday and Thursday for the afternoon. At the end of the week, we had a working prototype that met or exceeded our expectations and didn't drop too much functionality.

Art has been somewhat of an issue. Originally we were looking to outsource to a friend of Triston, but after discussing the ramifications of that we decided to stay in-house. However, by the time I reached Mark to discuss in-house outsourcing, he was in China for a week or so with no internet access. I spoke with Roger, and he passed along an email to his undergrads. As of now, we may be able to grab a couple pieces of concept art from an undergrad I've been in talks with, but given the short notice, understandably, I'm not expecting him to be able to produce anything. We did manage to get a couple pieces of customer art together thanks to Sagar, and it seems that those will be plenty sufficient if all else fails.

With time running out, our team managed to keep cool, get the work done, and turn out a quality prototype in the face of a few setbacks. The team did great, and if everything goes according to plan, our work should reflect this. Pitches are this week, and we have a fair understanding of what's expected. Hopefully all goes well and we can actually produce a fully realized game.

Week Two, Going Strong

Week two is just about over, and the project is going well. A couple set backs with outsourcing, but we made a little headway. Thursday was our planned meeting day with Triston's friend regarding some outsourced sound, but due to the extreme nature of parking on campus during a football game, we had to reschedule. We also ran into some issues with getting sound into our game using Moai. According to the engineers, it requires a decent amount of legwork to get operational. Even if we don't get sound into the prototype, we could always show a video of the prototype and just add sound in video post-production. Another team is also working on sound, and we're hoping to combine our collective knowledge and maybe cobble something together.

In regards to outsourcing, I've found the Creative Commons license to be an excellent resource, especially for a prototype. The Creative Commons website is easy to use and gets the user a license in a few minutes. The license is easily configurable and allows for a decent amount of customization. We will be looking into some concept art outsourcing this week, but that will be through the University. Unfortunately, Labor Day is setting that back a bit, but our team is meeting Tuesday to do some work anyway, which will be a great opportunity to figure out the art outsourcing.

By Tuesday the team should have a pretty decent working prototype. It does look like programmer art and white boxes will be the de facto aesthetic for our prototype. We're okay with that though. It is a prototype, and we don't have an artist easily accessible. That should complete the first sprint in our scrum, which I created last week. The second sprint is mostly user interface, and if our estimates are correct, we should have a little extra time to tidy things up and maybe add a start screen (or work on sound).

To get started with the scrum process I used a spreadsheet in Google docs. Mostly it was creating user stories and sprints, and putting that information into a visually discernible format. It was also pretty easy to create a burndown chart. Although with a 2-3 week project a burndown chart feels a bit overkill. It was good for the practice though, and it can't hurt the project. Overall, I think the scrum documentation turned out well, and next week we will actually get into using it to assign work.

Going into the last full week of work (and being halfway done), I'm feeling good about the project. Everything is on schedule and the engineers are getting even better with Lua and the Moai engine.

First Week

The first week is over and we've made some decent progress. The game is fairly fleshed out and the engineers are getting the engine up and working on basic functionality that we can hopefully port right over to our prototype. Right now we're doing a lot of groundwork just getting what we need in order and figuring out how we can do it. I anticipate a lot of work the next few weeks.

Our advantage may be the simplicity of our game. It doesn't involve a lot of moving parts, uses a static background, and the core mechanics are basic. Other than some simple sounds and artwork, the legwork should be pretty quick.