Vincent Slifer PPJ Post Mortem

What Went Right
1. Created Multiple Games for the Motion Base
The primary goal of the project was to successfully develop a game designed for use on the motion base, and I felt that this was accomplished fairly well.  Throughout the weeks, the team worked together in order to create and implement a diverse amount of games to experiment with the different motions of the simulator to create vastly different experiences for each game.

2. Created a Method to Integrate Games

A fairly important aspect of our game was that it was composed of mini games.  We needed a methodology to integrate everyone's games with a minimal interruption with anyone else's work.  We developed a fairly simple system of just creating our own sub folders to sort our games, but it was a good methodology to find assets needed in a quick manner.

3. Collaboration

A very important aspect in team projects.  I felt that everyone worked well together to make the project.  Everyone expressed their ideas to each other at meetings and brainstormed to create new ideas on how the mini games would be presented.

What Went Wrong

1. Version Control

Whether it was an issue with our system for hosting the builds or people updating the build at inopportune times,  there were a few issues with keeping the build updated.  From my experience, Perforce, itself, gave me a lot of trouble and headache.

2. Communication

While the team worked fairly well in collaborating together, there were some issues in communicating with each other.  Some members, including myself, did little to minimal communications on the group slack, and sometimes communicated in methods not fully available to the group.

3. Work Ethic

The team decisively separated members to fields that best suited their abilities, programmers program and artists create art, but the distribution of work seemed off.  From my experiences, I felt that I did not accomplish a lot.  I was able to program the mech game and had a little extra time to test an idea for another mini game, I felt that other members had taken up more of the responsibilities.  While I am grateful that they were willing to take on tasks, I feel that I should have had more work to accomplish.

Moving Forward

Essentially, the group needed a definitive leadership role to keep track of tasks and group focus.  The group needed someone dedicated to assigning tasks for each game, and figuring what needs to be done on a less loose schedule of just one week to complete your task.  The leader role would also aid in keeping members in touch, ensuring people were in open communication or could easily get a hold of them no matter what.  In the end, someone dedicated to being in a leadership role would vastly improve the effectiveness of cooperating with each other and keeping track of individual assignments.

Lessons Learned

- Communicate everything with members

- Ensure lines of communication are open

- Learn how to use the hosting service(s)

- Do not work on projects in the early AM