Puzzles have always fascinated me. My first puzzle was a little book filled with 9 piece pictures of construction vehicles. I have found that I enjoy gaming partially because with every new game comes a new puzzle. Card games which require you to build your own deck in particular fascinate me. Even when I don't particularly care about the game play I enjoy wrestling with the puzzle of how to build a good deck.
Deckbuilding in Magic the Gathering especially scratches my puzzle itch. Finding the puzzle I want to complete and then working from there to find the pieces that I can slot into my puzzle is a unique kind of challenge. My favorite Magic the Gathering puzzles come from deckbuilding for the format called Elder Dragon Highlander(EDH) or Commander. What draws me to this format is the requirement that your deck focus around a single special card, your Commander, as well as the restricion of a single copy of all cards in the deck. These restrictions help make each deck a new puzzle filled with fascinating challenges.
The first step for me in deckbuilding for EDH is to find a puzzle I want to complete, most of the time this is simply finding a Commander I want to figure out but sometimes I find a mechanic that compels me. Once I've got a puzzle I start looking for the edge pieces, the main walls of the deck which the rest of the deck will be supporting. With the edge pieces in hand I dive into my puzzle box and rummage through all the pieces I have looking for the ones that seem to fit. Once I've found everything that seems like it could fit I'm left with a massive pile of cards, far more than could fit in a legal deck, so I return to the walls of the deck. The walls of the deck help me focus in on what is important for the deck to be doing and how it is doing those things. The focus of the deck becomes clearer over time as I fill in more pieces of the puzzle, the extraneous pieces going back into the box. Finally once I've removed all the excess cards the deck is ready to play.
The culmination of the deckbuilding process often sets me up for a new puzzle when I find a fascinating card or combination that does not fit within the deck I'm currently working on.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Monday, February 18, 2019
I am back
Returning to my thoughts here after a couple of years break feels very strange. I remember several of the plans I had just after graduation from Champlain College to continue and expand my web presence. I abandoned most of them as I realized that I was enjoying the simplicity of working at JiffyLube cleaning cars, changing oil and continuing my education in a different direction. I had intended to put up a personal website to showcase my work to potential employers but stalled when I realized I could barely stand to display any of my previous work outside of Arco and Korku. I had intended to continue posting on this blog but quickly forgot about it and failed to keep to any kind of schedule.
Initially my work at JiffyLube served only to gain experience working a 9-5 job and to gain some pocket change for my last year at Champlain. I quickly found that the work appealed to me in its simplicity. I didn't need to worry if I would need to pull multiple all night work sessions to complete a project and each car had a repetitious regularity that I found meditative. My new appreciation for auto work combined with my emotional exhaustion of the final year at Champlain to drive me to expand my horizons beyond coding. I had known nothing about cars or how to maintain them when I started work at JiffyLube and learned from the ground up all the basics my parents had never taught me.
I lapsed in maintaining this blog because at the end of my time at Champlain I was accustomed to using this space for homework, it was mine but not mine to do with as I pleased. Without a clear idea what to do with this area outside of homework I did not have any interest in continuing to post here. Returning here with an idea of what I want to use this space for, I hope to continue updating this space on a weekly basis. Each week I intend to talk about my personal projects I am working on or gaming topics that interest me, sometimes I expect there will be overlap.
-Vasily McCausland
Initially my work at JiffyLube served only to gain experience working a 9-5 job and to gain some pocket change for my last year at Champlain. I quickly found that the work appealed to me in its simplicity. I didn't need to worry if I would need to pull multiple all night work sessions to complete a project and each car had a repetitious regularity that I found meditative. My new appreciation for auto work combined with my emotional exhaustion of the final year at Champlain to drive me to expand my horizons beyond coding. I had known nothing about cars or how to maintain them when I started work at JiffyLube and learned from the ground up all the basics my parents had never taught me.
I lapsed in maintaining this blog because at the end of my time at Champlain I was accustomed to using this space for homework, it was mine but not mine to do with as I pleased. Without a clear idea what to do with this area outside of homework I did not have any interest in continuing to post here. Returning here with an idea of what I want to use this space for, I hope to continue updating this space on a weekly basis. Each week I intend to talk about my personal projects I am working on or gaming topics that interest me, sometimes I expect there will be overlap.
-Vasily McCausland
Friday, April 8, 2016
Reviewland
When I joined this team at the beginning of the semester I was still unhappy about my last team getting cut due mostly to a factor that was completely beyond our control (the server service we were using for hosting was down for the hour we were demoing our game to the faculty). I was also quite worried to be joining a team that had fired their artist last semester. As the semester started and I became more familiar with the team the worry and the unhappiness faded away, the original team was a joy to work with and the other new members of the team were equally as easy to work with. I was surprised how much I came to care about the game given that at the start of the semester I wasn't particularly interested in the premise.
The team got off to a slow start adding several new movement schemes and not much else. We did not focus on putting together a stable build and chose instead to keep adding features. This caused a great deal of issues early on as we tried to add several features and weren't able to test them thoroughly and they caused game breaking bugs. After a several weeks of this we stopped, took stock and realized exactly what we'd been doing up to that point, we buckled down and resolved to focus on having stable builds. With a focus on always having a stable build at the end of a work session we started to catch up to where we needed to be. It still took crunch time for us to finally catch up to where we needed to be and last week's Alpha deadline enforced that crunch time. We are currently where we should be and even during the period where we were behind the team was dedicated and willing to pull all-nighters to get our work done.
The team got off to a slow start adding several new movement schemes and not much else. We did not focus on putting together a stable build and chose instead to keep adding features. This caused a great deal of issues early on as we tried to add several features and weren't able to test them thoroughly and they caused game breaking bugs. After a several weeks of this we stopped, took stock and realized exactly what we'd been doing up to that point, we buckled down and resolved to focus on having stable builds. With a focus on always having a stable build at the end of a work session we started to catch up to where we needed to be. It still took crunch time for us to finally catch up to where we needed to be and last week's Alpha deadline enforced that crunch time. We are currently where we should be and even during the period where we were behind the team was dedicated and willing to pull all-nighters to get our work done.
Spit and Polish
Semester 2 Week 12 (4/1-4/8)
This last week has been a little more mellow than the previous weeks have been because we had made the milestones that we had set for ourselves and the class alpha and beta milestones. Reaching these milestones did not mean we stopped working but it meant that our focus has shifted to polish and bug fixing since we are no longer adding features. Changing our focus to bug fixing has shown us that we need to get more and better testing from the school's QA lab.
In testing our practice has previously been to test on PC and Android because the mobile builds lagged behind our PC builds in terms of stability. This practice has meant that bugs tended to go undiscovered for longer on Android and iOS. Now that we are correcting this poor testing practice we are only testing on Android, I am working to make sure that we will also be testing on iOS as well. This shift will improve the quality of our QA feedback since the platforms we are developing for are Android and iOS, the bugs and issues that the testers will be encountering will be relevant and provide more accurate causes to the programmers.
This last week has been a little more mellow than the previous weeks have been because we had made the milestones that we had set for ourselves and the class alpha and beta milestones. Reaching these milestones did not mean we stopped working but it meant that our focus has shifted to polish and bug fixing since we are no longer adding features. Changing our focus to bug fixing has shown us that we need to get more and better testing from the school's QA lab.
In testing our practice has previously been to test on PC and Android because the mobile builds lagged behind our PC builds in terms of stability. This practice has meant that bugs tended to go undiscovered for longer on Android and iOS. Now that we are correcting this poor testing practice we are only testing on Android, I am working to make sure that we will also be testing on iOS as well. This shift will improve the quality of our QA feedback since the platforms we are developing for are Android and iOS, the bugs and issues that the testers will be encountering will be relevant and provide more accurate causes to the programmers.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Adventures in QA land
For most of this semester I have been in the QA liaison for my team, for us this means that I prepare the test plan and feedback forms for Champlain's QA sessions. I also oversee the creation and execution of the smoke test and the team's QA sessions. The experience has been very helpful and hectic.
I have learned a lot from being the QA liaison this semester. One of the things that Champlain College doesn't really teach is the value of QA. Admittedly its a hard concept to fit into a classroom but it has informed and improved my priorities when programming as well as given me a much more useful set of tools to process feedback.
The semester is winding down and while that does not mean that the programming has gotten any less urgent it does mean that the focus has shifted to bugs and polish rather than new features or UI or such. The shift to bug fixing and polish lets me as the QA liaison test for specific issues and worry far less about having a stable build to take to QA.
I have learned a lot from being the QA liaison this semester. One of the things that Champlain College doesn't really teach is the value of QA. Admittedly its a hard concept to fit into a classroom but it has informed and improved my priorities when programming as well as given me a much more useful set of tools to process feedback.
The semester is winding down and while that does not mean that the programming has gotten any less urgent it does mean that the focus has shifted to bugs and polish rather than new features or UI or such. The shift to bug fixing and polish lets me as the QA liaison test for specific issues and worry far less about having a stable build to take to QA.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Cleaning Up the Act
Semester 2 Week 7 (2/27-3/4)
We have finally arrived in the realm of stable builds and it feels good. We made a concentrated effort this week to not only create a stable build but to not add more bugs to the game. We largely succeeded in our aims this week and while I think we are still behind where we want to be we have made up a good amount of ground. If we can keep having weeks with the quality of productivity that we had this last week I will not be worried about finishing the game to the level that we planned at the beginning of the semester.
In addition to cracking down on our bugs this week we added a lot of polish that makes the game feel much more vibrant and alive. The fluidity of the transitions continued to improve and the overworld alongside them. Now players can easily tell which level they are on and which levels come next. In addition the camera now pans over to the new level.
Last semester I saw Amanda's work from the perspective of another team and was less than impressed at both the quality and quantity of her work. Perhaps that was only a result of watching from the outside but her work this semester has been much more impressive and beautiful. Amanda's work has continually improved the look of the game without departing from the visual style that the game started out with.
I spent a large chunk of this week out of commission unfortunately as I spent the beginning of the week de-stressing with my parents away from a computer and then mid week was consumed with two days of working exclusively on another class's homework. I am happier with the quality of my work this week than I have been previously this semester but I did not do enough work the rest of the week to make up for not working for 3 days.
We have finally arrived in the realm of stable builds and it feels good. We made a concentrated effort this week to not only create a stable build but to not add more bugs to the game. We largely succeeded in our aims this week and while I think we are still behind where we want to be we have made up a good amount of ground. If we can keep having weeks with the quality of productivity that we had this last week I will not be worried about finishing the game to the level that we planned at the beginning of the semester.
In addition to cracking down on our bugs this week we added a lot of polish that makes the game feel much more vibrant and alive. The fluidity of the transitions continued to improve and the overworld alongside them. Now players can easily tell which level they are on and which levels come next. In addition the camera now pans over to the new level.
Last semester I saw Amanda's work from the perspective of another team and was less than impressed at both the quality and quantity of her work. Perhaps that was only a result of watching from the outside but her work this semester has been much more impressive and beautiful. Amanda's work has continually improved the look of the game without departing from the visual style that the game started out with.
I spent a large chunk of this week out of commission unfortunately as I spent the beginning of the week de-stressing with my parents away from a computer and then mid week was consumed with two days of working exclusively on another class's homework. I am happier with the quality of my work this week than I have been previously this semester but I did not do enough work the rest of the week to make up for not working for 3 days.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
The Importance of Awareness
Semester 2 Week 6 (2/22-2/26)
This week was rough, Nick and I got into a couple of arguments but we rather easily resolved them and in resolving those arguments we found ways to work together and improve the team's work. The team also realized where we were compared to where we wanted to be and pulled together to get us much closer to where we want to be.
Stress had been mounting this week due to the Sisyphean task of creating a stable build. What finally broke us out of our funk was realizing and recognizing the bad work habits that had trapped us in a an endless cycle of fixing game breaking bugs and causing them at the same time. Sometimes all that a person requires to clean up their bad behavior is simply recognizing that it is bad, all too often behavior that doesn't seem all that problematic ends up causing the most damage. By recognizing the damage we had been doing by inaction and accident we have been able to put together our first truly stable build of the semester. We have also instituted several stricter rules for managing the repository and reporting our work, these rules have already shown some benefit to workflow and general team work efficiency.
I truly believe that the arguments Nick and I had are resolved to both of our satisfaction, both times a combination of stress and misunderstanding exacerbated the situation and caused our tempers to flare. Once we got to talking the issue out we quickly resolved our disagreements and learned something about each other.
Also I am annoyed at myself for always ending up finishing these blog posts halfway through the next week. I start writing on Wednesday intending to finish on Thursday or Friday but something always comes up or I forget or some other obstacle. I am not sure what to do to fix this but I am making a push to get week 7 finished by Friday night.
This week was rough, Nick and I got into a couple of arguments but we rather easily resolved them and in resolving those arguments we found ways to work together and improve the team's work. The team also realized where we were compared to where we wanted to be and pulled together to get us much closer to where we want to be.
Stress had been mounting this week due to the Sisyphean task of creating a stable build. What finally broke us out of our funk was realizing and recognizing the bad work habits that had trapped us in a an endless cycle of fixing game breaking bugs and causing them at the same time. Sometimes all that a person requires to clean up their bad behavior is simply recognizing that it is bad, all too often behavior that doesn't seem all that problematic ends up causing the most damage. By recognizing the damage we had been doing by inaction and accident we have been able to put together our first truly stable build of the semester. We have also instituted several stricter rules for managing the repository and reporting our work, these rules have already shown some benefit to workflow and general team work efficiency.
I truly believe that the arguments Nick and I had are resolved to both of our satisfaction, both times a combination of stress and misunderstanding exacerbated the situation and caused our tempers to flare. Once we got to talking the issue out we quickly resolved our disagreements and learned something about each other.
Also I am annoyed at myself for always ending up finishing these blog posts halfway through the next week. I start writing on Wednesday intending to finish on Thursday or Friday but something always comes up or I forget or some other obstacle. I am not sure what to do to fix this but I am making a push to get week 7 finished by Friday night.
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