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.
Monday, March 7, 2016
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.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Relighting the Fire
Semester 2 Week 5 (2/14-2/21)
This week has been weird for me, for the first time on this team I didn't feel enthusiastic about the game. I felt tired of the game and working upon it. This was noticeable in the quantity of work I put out in the first half of the week and I was unhappy about my lack of productivity. Resolving to sit down and work on Wednesday did not magically reinvigorate me or re-motivate me but it did help me find a place where I could do some happy coding for the project.
Wednesday was the first fully positive day I've had in a long time. Not to say that I haven't had good days recently or that Wednesday was the best day I've had in a while. Wednesday was a day of many small positives and no negatives, a day that will likely slip out of memory in a week or two but while it remains will brighten my life. I resolved an issue that had been hampering my role as QA Liason for my team and really stressing me out, Professor Ferguson helped me get access to the QA Team sign up page of Canvas. I also got a lot of work done early in the day, then while waiting for the Legend Has It work meeting I got to play a fun game for a couple of hours. The day ended with a long work session that was very productive. All throughout the day the weather was pleasant and did not bring down the day.
The rest of the week I had no issues with productivity and my malaise about the game gradually disappeared. I managed to finish all my work and I feel good about my overall productivity for the week. I am looking forward to getting this game to a place I can be proud to say that I helped make that game.
This week has been weird for me, for the first time on this team I didn't feel enthusiastic about the game. I felt tired of the game and working upon it. This was noticeable in the quantity of work I put out in the first half of the week and I was unhappy about my lack of productivity. Resolving to sit down and work on Wednesday did not magically reinvigorate me or re-motivate me but it did help me find a place where I could do some happy coding for the project.
Wednesday was the first fully positive day I've had in a long time. Not to say that I haven't had good days recently or that Wednesday was the best day I've had in a while. Wednesday was a day of many small positives and no negatives, a day that will likely slip out of memory in a week or two but while it remains will brighten my life. I resolved an issue that had been hampering my role as QA Liason for my team and really stressing me out, Professor Ferguson helped me get access to the QA Team sign up page of Canvas. I also got a lot of work done early in the day, then while waiting for the Legend Has It work meeting I got to play a fun game for a couple of hours. The day ended with a long work session that was very productive. All throughout the day the weather was pleasant and did not bring down the day.
The rest of the week I had no issues with productivity and my malaise about the game gradually disappeared. I managed to finish all my work and I feel good about my overall productivity for the week. I am looking forward to getting this game to a place I can be proud to say that I helped make that game.
Monday, February 15, 2016
The Rough Beast of Bethlehem is Midterms
Semester 2 Week 4 (2/7-2/13)
Last week I became a third wheel. I didn't have a specific focus for my work and if felt like I was playing a supporting role in all of my tasks. I found myself with plenty to do but worried about running out of tasks to do which depending on the project is a great or terrifying occurrence. I don't think that the project I am on is off track but sometimes we struggle to declare all of our tasks at the start of the week and I try to be careful how much work I assign to myself. Another factor is that now that I am in charge of QA I get assigned fewer programming tasks so that I don't get overloaded with work.
This last week has been all about feelings. I've always worried about how good I am at programming and how much time I spend working. Most of the time I can push these fears away because I know that I am not an objective judge of my own work. Both teams that I have worked on this semester have really helped me feel like I am contributing meaningful work and driven away much of that feeling.
The criteria for our midterms deliverable that terrifies me most is a stable tested build. Not because we won't have it but because it means we will have our whole tutorial and over-world level progression done and figured out and stable and tested. I simply don't know if I can imagine that and that freaks me out whether or not it is actually a problem. Overall I think that we are mostly on track to reaching our midterm goals though the implementation of the over-world has really thrown a wrench into what the game looks, feels and plays like.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
The Journey to the Center of Me
Semester 2 Week 3 (1/31-2/6)
This week we shook our working practices out and revised them when they didn't work. Will and I took on our new responsibilities while the team adjusted to a revised sprint schedule. This week culminated in a pretty disastrous QA session which while extremely problematic exposed several issues with how we had been proceeding that can now be addressed.
Will took over as the Scrumlord and he set about revising our scrum habits and sprint schedule with a lot of energy. It was really refreshing to have a confident and steady hand at the tiller though I really don't like Sunday work meetings. I think Will has done a really good job getting everyone to report what they've done each day at scrum and he's worked to make scrum more relevant to how we work. I've had an eventful first week as the QA Liaison for my team, after going over the documentation early in the week I discovered on Thursday we did not have a stable build (despite that having been a specific work goal the day before). Despite the team's best efforts we did not have a stable build before QA on Thursday. However since then we have taken the lessons we learned and refined our build policy so that we will reliably have a stable build in time for QA.
I think it would be helpful to have a critique of the story and feel of the game. Right now it sometimes feels like the team is so completely sold on the story that none of us are questioning it when it needs to be questioned.
This week we shook our working practices out and revised them when they didn't work. Will and I took on our new responsibilities while the team adjusted to a revised sprint schedule. This week culminated in a pretty disastrous QA session which while extremely problematic exposed several issues with how we had been proceeding that can now be addressed.
Will took over as the Scrumlord and he set about revising our scrum habits and sprint schedule with a lot of energy. It was really refreshing to have a confident and steady hand at the tiller though I really don't like Sunday work meetings. I think Will has done a really good job getting everyone to report what they've done each day at scrum and he's worked to make scrum more relevant to how we work. I've had an eventful first week as the QA Liaison for my team, after going over the documentation early in the week I discovered on Thursday we did not have a stable build (despite that having been a specific work goal the day before). Despite the team's best efforts we did not have a stable build before QA on Thursday. However since then we have taken the lessons we learned and refined our build policy so that we will reliably have a stable build in time for QA.
I think it would be helpful to have a critique of the story and feel of the game. Right now it sometimes feels like the team is so completely sold on the story that none of us are questioning it when it needs to be questioned.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Red Light, Green Light
Semester 2 Week 2 (1/24-1/30)
This week we learned a valuable lesson in the value of communication when we realized that the Orbit movement behavior I had written did not fit with the vision the Lead designer and lead programmer had of the behavior. This week I have rewritten this movement behavior to be more in line with the intended design and taken on the role of QA Lead. While the rewriting is valuable it does feel a little like treading water to be redoing so soon after writing it. The work meetings thus far this week have produced good progress and each time I feel much further ahead with my work than I started. The math for calculating an orbit is rather fascinating as I am discovering with Nick's* help.
My current schedule of curricular and extra curricular activities has cramped my available work time on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I am currently looking for ways to adjust my schedule so as to have longer contiguous work times on those days.
As we head towards green-light, my role in the team has been evolving towards supporting programmer and QA Lead. I have been supporting Nick as we attempt clean up and simplify the movement system though I have been concentrated on the Orbit movement behavior in particular. As QA Lead I am taking on the responsibility of making sure that we get to QA each week and that we receive useful feedback from testers. I ended up with the position because I was curious and willing to explore the role and it was felt by the team that having one of the programmers be in charge of QA might help us ask better questions of the testers since I would have a better idea of what we are looking for.
*Nick is the team's Lead Programmer.
This week we learned a valuable lesson in the value of communication when we realized that the Orbit movement behavior I had written did not fit with the vision the Lead designer and lead programmer had of the behavior. This week I have rewritten this movement behavior to be more in line with the intended design and taken on the role of QA Lead. While the rewriting is valuable it does feel a little like treading water to be redoing so soon after writing it. The work meetings thus far this week have produced good progress and each time I feel much further ahead with my work than I started. The math for calculating an orbit is rather fascinating as I am discovering with Nick's* help.
My current schedule of curricular and extra curricular activities has cramped my available work time on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I am currently looking for ways to adjust my schedule so as to have longer contiguous work times on those days.
As we head towards green-light, my role in the team has been evolving towards supporting programmer and QA Lead. I have been supporting Nick as we attempt clean up and simplify the movement system though I have been concentrated on the Orbit movement behavior in particular. As QA Lead I am taking on the responsibility of making sure that we get to QA each week and that we receive useful feedback from testers. I ended up with the position because I was curious and willing to explore the role and it was felt by the team that having one of the programmers be in charge of QA might help us ask better questions of the testers since I would have a better idea of what we are looking for.
*Nick is the team's Lead Programmer.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
New Day, New Team
Semester 2 Week 1 (1/18-1/23)
Joining a new team is always hard, and the dissolution of the old team still hurts a bit but liking everybody on my new team helps a lot.
I was drafted onto the Serpent Shadows* team and I wasn't sure if I would get along with my new teammates. The team meetings we had during break really helped me get a read on everybody and by introducing me to the team erased any fears I had of not getting along with my teammates (at least on my end). The other important part of our meetings during the break was that I was introduced to the workflow and speed the team operated with, which helped ease me into the team when the semester started.
This first week of work was both an experiment and a warm-up period for the team. We wanted to implement 4 new movement behaviors and use them to help integrate the story with the game play more than it was initially. The movement behavior I worked on was referred to variably as the Orbit or Gravity behavior. This behavior activated when the player was tapping or clicking near the dragons head, the dragon would then begin orbiting around a nearby point. This behavior created a gravity slingshot style of movement which required great precision to arrive at the desired location.
The programmers on the team familiarized ourselves with the code base during this week as well. The base movement system in particular was revamped during the week.
*The game the team was working on is a Mobile based endless runner where the player controls a dragon protecting 4 orbs from the hostile environment you find yourself in. The art is done with shadow puppets and this creates a somewhat ethereal quality in the game.
Joining a new team is always hard, and the dissolution of the old team still hurts a bit but liking everybody on my new team helps a lot.
I was drafted onto the Serpent Shadows* team and I wasn't sure if I would get along with my new teammates. The team meetings we had during break really helped me get a read on everybody and by introducing me to the team erased any fears I had of not getting along with my teammates (at least on my end). The other important part of our meetings during the break was that I was introduced to the workflow and speed the team operated with, which helped ease me into the team when the semester started.
This first week of work was both an experiment and a warm-up period for the team. We wanted to implement 4 new movement behaviors and use them to help integrate the story with the game play more than it was initially. The movement behavior I worked on was referred to variably as the Orbit or Gravity behavior. This behavior activated when the player was tapping or clicking near the dragons head, the dragon would then begin orbiting around a nearby point. This behavior created a gravity slingshot style of movement which required great precision to arrive at the desired location.
The programmers on the team familiarized ourselves with the code base during this week as well. The base movement system in particular was revamped during the week.
*The game the team was working on is a Mobile based endless runner where the player controls a dragon protecting 4 orbs from the hostile environment you find yourself in. The art is done with shadow puppets and this creates a somewhat ethereal quality in the game.
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