Xavier Smith, Week 1 Journal PPJ, Blog post 1, GMAP 378

 

Idea creation, Master Asset/Task List, Team Setup, Slack, Perforce, Team Integration, PPJ

Content with Hours (Examples included):

           Today's the week we merge teams and expand! A lot of the work this week was focused on getting all the new members into our team and setting the structure for our project moving forward. I spent some time ascertaining team member's strengths/weaknesses and delegating work and positions within the team accordingly and established small tasks for everyone to accomplish by our next meeting that I set for Sunday. Here's to hoping things run smoothly all term

(1.5 hrs)

              Our first meeting! They grow up so fast. This week I gave the new programmers a basic overview of the system and assigned them the task of creating a very basic mini-game so that they could get a feel for the system we've implemented moving forward. I then sat in on the artist's meeting where we discussed game concepts, mockups, and storyboards.

(2 hrs)

  My second task was starting on the Master Asset List. I looked at all the games we had planned from the weekly meeting and created programming assets accordingly. I also made note of all the documentation we'd need to do and when we'd need it by. 

(1 hrs)

     

Content Positive (Duplicate hours from above):

-          Group organization tools are setup and everyone has a good idea of what's expected (1 .5 hrs)

-          We pitched a ton of games and concepts in our meeting. Everyone got a chance to speak and contribute something! (2 hrs)

-          Finished everything but the art for the Master Asset and Task List, so we have a ballpark estimate of how much we need to get done this term  (1 hrs)

Content Negative

-          Some members couldn't make the meeting, but they Skyped in and were informed of everything.

Total Hours for the week: 4.5 hrs

David Monteleone, Week 1 Journal PPJ, Blog post 1, GMAP 378

Idea creation, Team Pipeline, Team Setup, GDD, Slack, Perforce, Team Integration, PPJ

Content with Hours (Examples included):

This is the start of our new expanded team! Now that we have the other half of the class with us, I had to integrate them into our current system. I had to get everyone into our Slack and explain what each channel is used for and how we use Slack. I sent out the initial set of invites to edit our blog. Somehow this was a bit of a problem and so many people needed some instruction on how to use the blog. Both Cory and I assisted in this area. I had to get everyone setup on our Google Drive so that they can edit the weekly Status Report file that we use. I also handed off the leadership of the group to Xavier. I feel that I learned plenty from being the main leader last quarter and it’s time for someone else to gain the same experience. I let him know my concerns and explained how I’ll help him along the way if any issues do come with regards to team organization and leadership. Last, I helped anyone that needed to get up to date with using Perforce as we needed to put a file into Perforce this week.

(1 hr)

My main task for the week was to put together the Team Pipeline Doc. This doc contains the necessary information about how to get started with our group, how the leadership is structured, how mini games will be made and implemented, and plenty of other important group information. This document was constructed from some of the content in last quarter’s GDD, but it was looked over and refreshed to better reflect how the group wants to run this term. I had to gather the necessary version numbers of all the tools we want to use this term. I also created a pipeline, with steps, to formulate mini games, build them, and ultimately integrate them into the main game. Last, I created the group hierarchy from the agreements we came to in class.

(2 hrs)

                I also attended our first entire group meeting. At this meeting I participated in formulating ideas that can be made into future mini games. I acted as the voice of reason as I was a main designer and programmer for Alien Arcade last term and understand most of its limitations. There was also a programmer meeting at this group meeting where both Xavier and I explained to the new programmers how the code is structured and how games integrate into the system as a whole.

(1 hr)

                Last, I went ahead and made a grey box idea for the water gun game that we came up with at our meeting. This is simply a proof of concept. The great part of doing this was that it showed myself how easily we can reuse assets from our other mini games. I reused scripts from the mech game and several others to create the grey box shown below. Shooting the red targets will move them upwards. In the future we want to expand on this to possibly a race between the humans and the aliens. The grey box is made, but not integrated into the entire game.

 (2 hrs)

Content Positive (Duplicate hours from above):

-          Group organization tools are setup by myself and ready to go! (1 hr)

-          The Team Pipeline Doc is complete and gives the group a go to document for team organization and how to integrate new games into Alien Arcade. I created this. (2 hrs)

-          Our first group meeting was an excellent start to getting the group’s mini game ideas flowing. (1 hr)

-          A grey box for a water gun game was made by myself. (2 hrs)

Content Negative

-          None

Total Hours for the week: 6 hrs

Tags: Idea creation, Team Pipeline, Team Setup, GDD, Slack, Perforce, Team Integration, PPJ