Team 6 in CPSC 319: Software Engineering Project
Friday, March 2, 2012
Agile Methods for Project Hestia
One of the agile methods that we have made use of during the development is the Scrum meeting. We meet every week on Tuesday and Thursday to discuss what we have gotten done, what we plan to do and how we plan on doing it. These meetings also involve a lot of coding in a group, to make sure that we are all working together and communicating well. Almost every major design decision is decided in these meetings. We make sure that everyone is included in deciding how we want the game to iterate for the next week. Secondarily, we have a google document of our backlog. From this list, we all chose what we want to work on next and any time a task is complete, we have it crossed out on the doc, so that we can all see what is and isn't done. Finally, we build tasks in small steps and iterate on them later. Each task, such as getting light working, starts as the basic idea and then evolves slowly as we improve the game. For example when I first built our Light Controller class, it only had one very basic light that was created. After that we build the other forms of light. Then we worked on the different colours of light. This process was very scrum-like and meant that we had a working, albiet flawed, product at all times.
Late Homework 3 Entry: How our team is using Agile methods this term
Although our team does have an overall schedule to abide too, the overall development process thus far has actually been very Agile like in its methodology. For example, even after creating new pieces of code or assets, we often seemed to have found ourselves, going back to the code or art, and refactoring it for efficiency, or in the case of art, perhaps even willing to create newer better models for use in game.
We also have broken down our schedule into small manageable steps, where we allot different amounts of days to different tasks based on perceived difficulty in order to finish them in a more timely manner. However, much like Agile developmental methods, if the task requires more time than usual, we may put it off to work on another task and return to it later. In our case for the Alpha build, we actually managed to finish some tasks early such as the lighting mechanic that changes the game environment's wall layout, giving us precious time to work on other new features.
In essence, since we are using a very flexible developmental schedule, with smaller tasks to complete in set amounts of time, our team is using Agile processes. The additional use of frequent weekly meetings, email correspondence, occasional pair programming, client (TA) meetings and other Agile techniques has thus far been very useful in our game's development.
We also have broken down our schedule into small manageable steps, where we allot different amounts of days to different tasks based on perceived difficulty in order to finish them in a more timely manner. However, much like Agile developmental methods, if the task requires more time than usual, we may put it off to work on another task and return to it later. In our case for the Alpha build, we actually managed to finish some tasks early such as the lighting mechanic that changes the game environment's wall layout, giving us precious time to work on other new features.
In essence, since we are using a very flexible developmental schedule, with smaller tasks to complete in set amounts of time, our team is using Agile processes. The additional use of frequent weekly meetings, email correspondence, occasional pair programming, client (TA) meetings and other Agile techniques has thus far been very useful in our game's development.
Hw #3 : Agile Methods
In our team we are using agile methods by making sure that we always have a product that builds and plays properly and it is always being incrementally being built. One of the things we started out with was that we properly built a character and a small level 1st that is playable and every week with the evaluator we would show how the product evolves and what kinds of iterations we will be building for the next week.
In other aspects of agile methodology we are going through the phases of talking to each other and making new changes on the spot. So for example when we found out that scripts for disappearing walls can work on other objects and character, we started to apply to different things in the game to make it more interesting.
Some of the risks we associated with agile methods is that it is very hard to kind of estimate the time when the the project will be done. Sometimes we are done early and we don't know if we should expand it to more quality or complete the functionality in the next iteration of our build.
The trade offs of using agile is that we can adapt easily to changes and at the same time always see how our game progresses. With other methodologies like waterfall we would not have a working build till the end as everybody would be working on different stuff and just integrating a finished product at the end. Thinking about using waterfall method for this type of project would actually be difficult to see...
In other aspects of agile methodology we are going through the phases of talking to each other and making new changes on the spot. So for example when we found out that scripts for disappearing walls can work on other objects and character, we started to apply to different things in the game to make it more interesting.
Some of the risks we associated with agile methods is that it is very hard to kind of estimate the time when the the project will be done. Sometimes we are done early and we don't know if we should expand it to more quality or complete the functionality in the next iteration of our build.
The trade offs of using agile is that we can adapt easily to changes and at the same time always see how our game progresses. With other methodologies like waterfall we would not have a working build till the end as everybody would be working on different stuff and just integrating a finished product at the end. Thinking about using waterfall method for this type of project would actually be difficult to see...
Thursday, March 1, 2012
General Update
Progress to-date
Although the essentials of our game are in place, we still need a good deal of polish to the final product. For example, we are still in need of more art assets, such as more enemy types, and objects to fill up the overall environment. Music variety also falls in line with this, where different sound effects to enhance the atmosphere also needs to be created.
On the more technical side, having a GUI to display the character's light status, number of matches to use, etc, will also be needed, in addition to a pause menu and title screen. We still need to work on the hiding game mechanic, as currently it is only partially complete.
Other nice things to be added include, "story" vignettes, where we get glimpses of our protagonist's past happier times, which of course would require more art assets as well.
- Characters:
- Protagonist and Ghoul enemy Art and objects done
- Scripts for Enemies and ghoul Protagnist done
- Camera Done
- Level
- Objects for patient rooms done
- Lighting and background Done
- Walls/shell all set up
- Collectibles
- Match/ Lantern/ Flashlight art objects done
- Scripts for the lighting done
- Sound
- Background music done
- Sound Effects for matches done
- Controls
- mouse/ keyboard keys script working
- Mechanics
- Walking/running done
- collidibles done
- AI for ghoul done
- Filters done
- hiding partially complete
- collectible mechanics done
Although the essentials of our game are in place, we still need a good deal of polish to the final product. For example, we are still in need of more art assets, such as more enemy types, and objects to fill up the overall environment. Music variety also falls in line with this, where different sound effects to enhance the atmosphere also needs to be created.
On the more technical side, having a GUI to display the character's light status, number of matches to use, etc, will also be needed, in addition to a pause menu and title screen. We still need to work on the hiding game mechanic, as currently it is only partially complete.
Other nice things to be added include, "story" vignettes, where we get glimpses of our protagonist's past happier times, which of course would require more art assets as well.
Updates to Design Document and Implementation Plan
Please note the new updates to the design document and implementation plan, you can view them in the tabs: "Progress" and "Design Document Updates" above the posts.
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