PDF Download: Newsletter: Week 6

It’s delivery day here at PS Ignite, and we’re happy to reach another deadline! The game has made few changes since last week, as most of our time was focused on implementing all of the features discussed in last week’s newsletter. It’s been a wild 3 weeks, and we’ve learned a lot about how to better structure our future cycles

One of the most important things we learned this cycle is to ensure proper, regular integration of all facets of the game. Since our programmers split up work, it’s easy to fall into a very segmented, isolated development environment. This cycle we had problems when programmers would move their work from test scenes into the new scenes, and that created problems towards the end that ultimately stunted the final product.

On the art side of things, we need to work out a better concept-to-final pipeline that allows the artists to explore the visual feel of the game without feeling like everything they do needs to be final art. This time around, our artists felt very much like “asset machines”, and that’s not a good place for them to inhabit.

Finally, we need to do a better job tracking individual tasks to ensure the right amount of time is being spent on each feature of the next project. Estimation and follow-up is very important for these short cycles, and we’ll be implementing a much stronger Scrum setup to ensure everyone is staying on task.

We are all going to sleep well tonight and recharge over the weekend, and we look forward to tackling our next assignment on Monday. After some time spent on introspection, of course!

Thanks for following!

-Team PlayStation Ignite