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Pre-Sprint 4 Planning: I Really Hate the Seahawks

Pre-Sprint 4 Planning: I Really Hate the Seahawks

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Pre-Sprint 4: I Hate the Seahawks

I’m from Seattle. I love the footballing Seattle Seahawks.

I’m from Seattle. I hate the footballing Seattle Seahawks.

Ugh.

Anyway.

Sprint Goals

  • Public Relations. It is far too early to start any sort of PR campaign – for example, there literally is no game to advertise yet. I’m also an indie dev, so calling it “PR” feels really slimy. Still, I think I’m at the stage where I can begin sharing some of the things I’m working on, even if it’s dumb bugs that we can all laugh at
  • Better code. All my code is throwaway – this is on purpose! I even added a state in VSTS called “Makeshift” purely to track the features that are *technically* coded but are actually hardcoded. I want to avoid too much rework and refactoring, but I’m at the stage where I need to sincerely clean things up
  • More art. I’ve finally taken a stab at creating pixel art. It’s not the best, but given that I have zero experience in this I can’t help but feel a little bit happy with what I can make. I want to continue.

Heads down, fingers moving. November is a big month. I’m going to make the most of it.

Pre-Sprint 3: Retrospective

Pre-Sprint 3: Retrospective

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I’ll probably mix the format of this up from time to time, especially as I’m still firmly in the “pre-game” of sprint planning. So, let’s do this thing!

Overview

Sprint went well. Did a little bit of everything, from coding to design to art to my business itself. As I’ve said twice already these “pre-sprints” are going to be weird and disjointed, but that’s ok because it’s still progress.

Change Log

Coding

+ Made scaling crisper

+ Added portrait to dialog

+ Locked camera to map

+ Implement two additional monsters

+ Generally made the code far worse and hacky and terrible, and everyone hates it

Design

+ Puttered about with TFS

+ Designed several new monsters! See them below

+ Began reading The Art of Game Design

Demo

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green-ball-1 masked-ball bollywood

Pre-Sprint 3 Planning: Better Late Than Never

Pre-Sprint 3 Planning: Better Late Than Never

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Pre-Sprint 3: Better Late Than Never

Truth is, I should have written this 3 days ago. But, uh, better late than never, right?

This sprint – pre-sprint, that is to say – is likely to be similar to the past two. So long as I’m chained down my time will be split and my concentration difficult. Still, it’s 8:31pm on a Tuesday and here I am working away, so that’s a good sign, right?

Well, let’s hope so.

Sprint Goals

  • More blog posts! I said this last time and wrote just one article. Granted that’s one more than I had before, but I need to do a better job
  • Obliterate stickies. I have a ridiculous number of outstanding stickies on my backlog board. No doubt this has contributed to my feeling unproductive. I want to tear through them, at least the easy ones.
  • Think more about the development process. Now that I’m actually coding it’s time to do some hard thinking on how I’ll actually work. How do iterations work? When do I know I’m done? When can people play this darn thing?

So, very similar to last sprint. Fairly unfocused, but not distractedly so. I think it’s going to take me at least a couple months before I can really focus on any one area. Until then, lots of irons in the fire.

Pre-Sprint 2: Retrospective

Pre-Sprint 2: Retrospective

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It’s official: progress continues to be made! These additional stickies are proof.

Highlights

  • Even more coding! I had promised myself that I wouldn’t harp too much on the actual coding – mostly out of fear of burnout while I’m in this weird limbo stage. Still, I got a lot of good work done, including dialog boxes, sprinting, a dog (!), commands to the dog (!!!), a bunch of other stuff!
  • Transferring work to Visual Studios Team Services. I don’t use Visual Studios. I’m not part of a Team. And yet I’m finding these so-called ‘Services’ pretty useful. TFS / VSTS is a wonderful one-stop shop for my features and code. It’s free. It’s way overkill for a solo project, but it’s working for me
  • More work on design. Now that I have a basic framework sketched out ideas are flowing through me. I’ve wrote most of them down but I have plenty of stuff still floating around in my head that needs to be put to paper

Lowlights

  • Not as much work as I could have done given my free time – again!
  • A big issue was concentration. This is going to be a big issue as this progresses, as I’ll need to be able to focus and concentrate to be successful – again!
  • Not much else to talk about save for the above repeats.

Demo

Still nothing to share in the way of an actual .exe, but here’s a gif of borderline dog abuse

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Pre-Sprint 2 Planning: The Storm That Wasn’t

Pre-Sprint 2 Planning: The Storm That Wasn’t

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Pre-Sprint 2: The Storm that Wasn’t

The Pacific Northwest is fairly sheltered as far as weather goes. We get a lot of overcast days and rain, and sure, one day a giant earthquake will kill us all, but we’re spared the blizzards and hurricanes and tornadoes and everything else. It’s typically very quiet here.

That’s why this last week was so unique. All throughout we were repeatedly warned about an upcoming storm that was to make landfall on Saturday (yesterday). Hurricane-force winds combined with a rain-soaked, saturated ground seemed to spell a devastating, once-in-a-generation type of storm. At best we’d all lose power, at worst we’d all lose our lives.

Well, the fact I’m posting this on Sunday morning is essentially some environmental storytelling, isn’t it? There was no storm. We didn’t lose power. We all survived. A bit of a bummer, if I’m honest.

Anyway, onto the next sprint – and the next storm!

Sprint Goals

  • More blog posts. I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around my head. Not all of them are useful or interesting, but I believe this blog is a medium in which I can get them down on paper and think through them. Expect to see some more posts
  • Continue implementing ‘simple’ systems. I’m not a strong believer in the whole ‘vertical slice’ pattern of game creation. I think it encourages bad practices and wasted work. My goal instead is to start simple, start rough, and then relentlessly iterate.
  • Read a whole lot. In order to become a better writer I need to first become a better reader. I know, I know, I sound like a 7th grade Language Arts teacher, but it’s true in this case. I have quite a few books coming my way on game design, storytelling, and writing in general. I must absorb these books like a sponge if i have any hope to make it

So, very similar to last sprint. Fairly unfocused, but not distractedly so. I think it’s going to take me at least a couple months before I can really focus on any one area. Until then, lots of irons in the fire.

Pre-Sprint 1: Retrospective

Pre-Sprint 1: Retrospective

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It’s official: progress has been made! These bunch of stickies are proof.

Highlights

  • Actual work on the game – wow! Real coding! Real design! It’s like I’m really developing a video game
  • Fixed a laptop. The prospect of drastically reduced paychecks has incentivize me to fix and maintain old hardware instead of ogling new hardware. I fixed up one laptop and now have 3 in total
  • Tons of design. Lots was done on the design part of the game, including a design document
  • Lessons Learned documentation. I’ve watched a lot of Shenmue 1 & 2 let’s play videos, and it’s not just for fun. I developed a system for taking notes and analyzing a game for what to do (and not to do) with my own game. I’m calling it ‘Lessons Learned’
  • Implemented several helper libraries. Used Tiled, imported a map, attached a camera to a sprite, and animated it. I love love2d

Lowlights

  • Not as much work as I could have done given my free time.
  • A big issue was concentration. This is going to be a big issue as this progresses, as I’ll need to be able to focus and concentrate to be successful

Demo

No shareable demo yet, and likely not for awhile, but here’s a GIF of my ‘progress’

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An impressive amount of bugs:lines of code, if I do say so myself