First Week of Teamwork

So as I mentioned in the previos entry, the class began the new Game Project on monday this week (January 19). And all groups have chosen a new game to develop. Me and Team 13 chose the stealth game Mole Munch by Team 8. Some members of the groups were relocated to a new group, and even whole groups have been disintegrated and allocated into new ones. Fortunately, my group was not affected, instead we received a new member by the name of Oskar Månsson, who is a second-year graphics student who will be a experienced asset for the team.  

Our first group meeting was on monday from 11:30 to 11.45, i.e. a very short one.
Her we spent the time with chosing the game we want to develop, and exhange new roles. This time however, the producer-role will be eschanged between all team members each week. For this week, we chose Adam as the Producer and me as the Lead Artist and Q.A.. The rest would continue their previos roles, Sebastian as the Game Designer, Olle as the Lead Programmer and Daniel as the Lead Sound Designer. After the meeting, we received Team 8:s Design Document of Mole Munch and we read it 'till our next meeting on thursday. We also gave our Magic Writer-document to two other groups who chose our game for their respective projects.

Our second meeting on thurday began on 10:20 and lasted to 11:50. It would later continue from 14:00 to 16:00, where we did some work as well. We created an SMS-group where we could contact each other outside of Skype and other social medias. Here we also intruced ourselves to Oskar. In this meeting we defined the game's aesthetics, which mechanics that we would retain and develop, and what the game would be all about. It would be a "Stealth Gathering" one, a Pacman game but with color. The game's graphics wouid be cartoonish and colorful with no darker colors. We also decided that we should put a maximum of 8 hours (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) every weekday to work on this project.  We'll take lunch between 12:00 to 13:00. On tuesdays and wednesdays we take our time with working on other school work. That means we only work with the project on mondays, tuesdays and fridays, except when we have lectures or other events that would come before the teamwork. We also did some actual work here; I collaborated with Oskar on making a moodboard for the game.

Our third meeting on friday began on 13:00 and lasted to 16:15. I was on an a meeting with my two mentors between 15:00-15:45. Here we met our newly appointed scrum master (scrum is a method in systems development) called Inge Olaisen, who can help us in the development process and coach us.  We exchanged phone numbers and invited him in our Skype- and SMS-groupes. Our prime decision was that the game would have a level system, instead of a endless one which our Game Designer Sebastian suggested. But me and the rest thought that it would be more easier and more fun to build different levels and design them wather than an entire open world. It would also be less work for all of us, especially for the programmers. Here I spent my time with doing Concept-Art for the mole. Oh by the way, we also made so that the mole could see all the map under ground, but not when he is "on" the ground.

So to sum this up, we have now begun the pre-production phase on the development of Mole Munch. This will continue during the next week where we will have a meeting with our scrum master and appoint a new producer. I hope it will go well for all of us, and that the game will be a true success.

"You are very, very hungry... the vegetables up there seem so crunchy and
succulent that you must get one. And another. And yet another ... But beware - the
people up there will not be excited about a mole digging in their yards, and will do
their best to drive you out."