Week 4

Abstract Our learning objectives for the week were:

Post 1: Nomenclature

I created some names for each of the characters and left them for the team to vote. I also started to look at some in-game brands and looked at Issac Assimove books for inspiration.

Brand

Company type

Monkii

Main company (Chip maker)

Volterman smart

Car company

Bionic

Drinks company

Kickstarter

Drug/Pharma company

Vardanyan

Energy company

Ohanian

Upcoming Film release

Shadowmatic

Games company

A few decisions were made: Team name = Simulacrum games Game name = Asimov Location = Yerebat (mash-up of Yerevan and Ashgabat) Main character = Asimov NPC Teacher Character name = Hari

I started to work on the story again as we had finalised the personalities and abilities of the characters with the group.

Friendlies

Name

Type

Personality

Ability

Asimov

Main playable

Inquisitive, Resourceful, Resilient

  • Krav Maga, Brazilian jiu jitsu

  • Melee,

  • Energy pulses

Spark

Companion

Grumby and sarcastic, dark humour - Happy with bodies that he likes.

Can jump into the bluepirnts picked up

Natasha - (vulnerable person)

Relies on the main character

Vulnerable, lost, scared

none

Hari - Data Scientist (best friend)

Advice and support character

ADHD

none

Gaal - Teacher (mentor/voice of reason)

Main character can undoubtedly trust

Analytical, caring, clever

none

Enemies

Name

Type

Personality

Abilities

Cleaner

Bot / Basic enemy

Zombie-like robot

  • Run

  • Attack with simple punches and wind-up animation

Gardener

Bot / Basic enemy

Zombie-like robot

Driver

Bot / Basic enemy

Zombie-like robot

Food vendor

Bot / Basic enemy

Zombie-like robot

Market stall person

Person / Mid level enemy

Like someone on withdrawal

Coffee Shop worker

Person / Mid level enemy

Like someone on withdrawal

Personal shopper

Person / Mid level enemy

Like someone on withdrawal

  • Circle motion with bags, dashes across the screen, gets dazed hitting walls

Hotel concierge

Person / End of level boss

Doctor

Person / End of level boss

Sleazy

Store Manager

Person / End of level boss

Little man syndrome

Accountant

Person / End of level boss

Power hungry

Chief executive

Person / Final boss

Arrogant hubristic

The story was based around thre gaming loop: - Investigate - Battle - Discover - Collect - Upgrade

Post 2: Presentation Deck

I had a look at the weekly content and started to draw a strawman of the presentation deck and created a confluence page. I put names against each section based on our team roles and areas we were responsible for.

  • Concept

    • Background on the game, story, platforms (@Nural Choudhury)

  • Features

    • Game Mechanics (@Daniel McKinley/ @Lucas Souza )

    • Artwork (@Luke Morrisby)

    • Music (@Daniel McKinley)

    • Machine Learning (@Lucas Souza)

  • Approach

    • Users and Market-fit (@Linda Fitzgerald)

    • Market Size (@Nural Choudhury)

    • Road-map/Money/Investment (@Nural Choudhury)

  • Prototype - Demo Walkthrough/Trailer (@Luke Morrisby)

  • Team

    • Who we are and background ()

  • Next steps

    • What needs to happen next (@Nural Choudhury)

I also created a Keynote template for the team to use. I then created a table to paste in their copy and drop their assets for me to pick up.

Meeting 1: Sprint Retro and Sprint planning

23/06/2021 As always I created and set-up our Sprint Retro and Sprint planning. The discussion topics were:

Item

Notes

Project Planning

  • @Nural Choudhury created a project plan

  • We need to create tickets for all the development tasks

Project Status

  • Ticket status updated

  • Assign jobs to open tickets

  • File types for UX/UI assets delivery

  • Sprint 2 Closed

Backlog grooming

  • Some tickets deleted

  • Assign jobs to open tickets

  • File types for UX/UI assets delivery

Sprint Planning

  • Ticket moved across into Sprint 3

  • Sprint changed to two-week sprint as we have larger tickets

Sprint Kick-off

  • Sprint 3 started

Game Demo

  • @Lucas Souza presented status of Greybox prototype

    • Attack

    • Weapons

    • Shoot

    • Weapon select

    • Sound

    • Enemies and interaction

    • AI Modelling

Sprint Retospective

  • Start

    • Pull-in tickets when you have time

    • Create tickets for everything

  • Stop

    • Procrastinating

  • Continue

    • Allowing time for blog writing

    • Voting in confluence

We also agreed to Deliver UX/UI assets in PNG or PSD file formats and have a mix of 2D and 3D art.

Post 3: Team charter

Whilst putting the deck together, I looked at the Marking Rubric, and one of the marking criteria mentioned: "Alignment with the team charter".

In week one, the tutors share the Group Work Strategy (Link) with us, and I referred back to it to see what elements I had to include in our team charter.

The description in the marking rubric describes, "A team charter is present and signed. Considerable effort has been made to ensure working practice aligns with that mapped out in the team charter."

This was rather vague, so I looked at it more in the sense of a 'Ways of Working' document or a 'Statement of work' (SOW).

A statement of work (SOW) describes a given project's requirements. It defines the scope of work, project deliverables, timelines, work location, and payment terms and conditions.

Putting things down on paper like this means there is no ambiguity, ensuring the agreed-upon scope of services within the SOW is completed on time and within budget.

Being the team leader, I thought I should be responsible for putting our Charter together and creating it. I had already set many things in motion during our set of meetings (Link) and thought it best to pull these bits together for the Charter.

I also thought it best to include elements of the

Group Work Strategy to clearly define the Handling Conflict, Team Dissolution and Redeployment of Students, and Performance Measurement as outlined in the marking rubric.

I put together the Charter in confluence and asked each team member to review and digitally sign it.

I reached out to Giovanni to confirm whether a digital signature would be valid, and he was comfortable with it.

The team was happy to sign the document as we had already defined most of it within the first few weeks. They had trusted my experience of putting similar documents together and read the Group Work Strategy document aspects before.

The Team Charter I produces is attached here

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