Monday 3rd Feb
Game production
We received a lecture from guest speaker Paul Macgillivray, who advised us on project management and production techniques. He told us to break down the GDD into key deliverables, and break the deliverables down into tasks (the steps taken to achieve them). We then sorted tasks in order of priority considering dependencies, then added time frames. This makes tracking progress and collaboration easier, as well as planning for delegations and risk factors.
Anna then made a Jira version of the above.
So we ended the meeting having new tasks and knowing which to complete first.
Thursday 6th Feb
Road-mapping
Sophie made us aware of the importance of contingency plans – planning ahead for potential emergencies and knowing what could be cut from the game if required. We had to decide who would take in someone else’s work if they were no longer able to complete it, and choose areas of the game that were not essential to the final product incase we had to remove them.
We also crafted some user stories, looking at the game from a players perspective. This helps us understand their desires for the game from a player perspective, and not just focusing on our personal vision. It also helps us understand players frustrations and dislikes so we can do our best to avoid them.
Our user stories:
- As a player, I want to have good camp management so I can feel like a successful leader.
- As a player, I want to be involved in story decisions to feel immersed in the world/to feel like my decisions matter.
- As a player, I want the family dynamics to feel natural and human so I can become more invested in the characters and story.
- As a player, I want to be captivated by the world so that I can feel suspended from reality.
We created a road-map for the next 3 months. Sophie asked us to consider how many hours we can work a week, and not to over estimate. This helped us plan for exactly how long each of our tasks would take, and apply it to our road-map. We colour coded ourselves and wrote down our tasks with their time frames. we wrote important milestones and specific dates for things to be achieved by.
We were all now aware of the order our tasks needed to be completed in, by what point and how long they would take.
End of week 2 😀
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