Blog post 4: Lack of motivation

Hello there.
This week I am going to talk about the biggest issue that my team, team Troll, has got in our development of the game “Depth”. That problem is lack of motivation. This problem have slowly been creeping up on the members of my team, the further we have gotten with the game and the closer we get to the next course. This was brought up by one of the graphics in my team and the other members agreed that […]

Post #4 – Introducing features to the player

What?
A tutorial level, meant to teach players how to use the various functions of the game.

Why?
After a lot of playtesting we have found one thing to be consistant, players rarely comprehend all the abilities they can use, when said abilities are best to use and how to figure out when they are able to do so. Hence the need for a tutorial level seemed apparent to us (the members of group siren).
How?
We gathered the group at Campus Gotland (Uppsala University) and […]

Is it better to stay in the background at times?

As I was trying to come up with a topic for this weeks blog post I was thinking of situations in which the team would meet up to work. I try to make this a common practice within our team. For the most part I am always the one who schedules the work times and I also make sure that we have someplace to work, yet once we are there, I don’t really do anything special. We usually host the […]

Missing minor in digital audio design

Developing a digital game in a group of five game design students in four minors – game design, programming, graphics, and project manager, some may note that one minor is necessarily missing. In a cross-functional small team developing a game, optimally anyone can take a part as a sound designer, and contribute to the project in a best way as he or she can, although quality may vary, based on previous experience, skills, musical nature and nurture. Some student groups […]

Just another scrum week

Hi,
Today I am going to write about a week between Alpha presentation and last playtesting prior to Beta presentation. Or, shortly – the 5th sprint.
Long Monday
A week before, we just end up with first testing and Alpha presentation, which gave us a lot of feedback from the test players. That Friday was a bit busy, so we skipped a sprint 4 review on that day and decided to move it to upcoming Monday. And there it came – the longest […]

Reflection on “Cut my life into…”, by Juste Eriksson

sasadzigurski
February 25, 2018 at 5:08 pm

Hi Juste!
I had a pleasure to read this blog. It was really clear and interesting description of spring subject as well as daily stand-up meetings. I agree that sprints are a bit too short, but that is how it is. Maybe, the only solution is to reduce features for each sprint to a minimum. I agree that it means also, freezing features from the product backlog.
About daily stand-ups, I could […]

Reflection on “Sprint 4 – Alpha” blog, by Niklas Ericsson

sasadzigurski skriver:
16 februari, 2018 kl. 16:57

Hey Niklas,
I have read your blog and I can say it was an interesting one. You have thoroughly described what improvements did you do with your game mechanics and aesthetics. First one, of different colours, was an easy and effective solution. I hope that change will result in a better response from the future players/ testers ( although it is a little bit harder to distinguish the spaceships and their projectiles […]

Reflection on Ithaqua group blog, by Alexander Ebbesson

sasadzigurski
February 11, 2018 at 3:42 pm

Hey Alex,
you have picked an interesting topic to write about. A group contract. Something that not all groups did in this course. You have written some basics about it and that is pretty clear. However, had you put some definition of a group contract and add some of those ground rules that you have mentioned (give some concrete examples) it would be more close to the readers. The readers which […]

Blog #4: Making a sound from scratch

Hi!
I’m Léo, Scrum Master and sound dude of team Wendigo. In today’s blogpost, I will discuss how I made the sound of the enemy squid shooting. In our game, “Umibōzu”, the squid is an enemy that shoots ink projectiles. Like all enemies, obstacles, and power ups in the game, when the squid is in the darkness, it is only visible as a silhouette to the player.
Silhouettes everywhere…
Only when the fishing boat’s spotlight is shone on a silhouette is the true […]

+1 Love to All Party Members

“Cho Aniki already perfected shoot ’em ups, so what are we even doing?”
We have all asked this question in our time here. This way of thinking is not helpful. We as game students already have so many new challenges and responsibilities to navigate, an existential crisis over our work is the last thing we need. Each of us is having our own struggles, but we are also part of a group. While that means we potentially have more support, it […]

My third blog comment

Week 3 – Emma Jelving Eklund
Hi!
I am happy to hear that Scrum have helped your group to decrease your communication issues. By having a bit of structure, documents to follow, it is easier to get a better workflow and organising in the group. According to myself, Scrum have been very helpful and effective for the project to move in the right direction.
I think you have made a brief reflection about your experience with Scrum. I would have wanted to […]

My second blog comment

Week 2 – William Teurnell
Hi!
I must applaud you for your blog post. It is nicely written and have an interesting topic. Since you started giving the reader a good description of the narratives (in the introduction), I got a detailed overview of the game and what you wanted to achieve.
As a project manager, I can relate to the decision of prioritising other features more, than putting the cutscenes as one of the biggest priorities. As you said, the cutscenes are […]