Introduction
No Play No Gain was made by 41 Game Designer students, in Rubika Supinfogame in Valenciennes, France.
The project objective is to realize a game composed of many micro-games, in three development steps and along a period of two and a half months.First, each students had to design two micro-game concepts and their documentations.
The second step was realized by a self-appointed group of students. Their objective consisted of doing the macro-game concept.
The last step was the development step. The students programmed two randomly chosen micro-game concepts. A new student team oversaw the development of the macro-game, and made the visual elements and sounds.
The project objective is to realize a game composed of many micro-games, in three development steps and along a period of two and a half months.First, each students had to design two micro-game concepts and their documentations.
The second step was realized by a self-appointed group of students. Their objective consisted of doing the macro-game concept.
The last step was the development step. The students programmed two randomly chosen micro-game concepts. A new student team oversaw the development of the macro-game, and made the visual elements and sounds.
Finally, the entire project organization was the responsibility of four students elected by the others.
Roles Within the Project
During the project, I lead the game design part of the macro-game and supervised the documentation process.
During the last step, I oversaw the organisation of the project, as well as the game art progress by establishing the list of assets and visual feedback required.
During the last step, I oversaw the organisation of the project, as well as the game art progress by establishing the list of assets and visual feedback required.
Project Organisation
After the first month, I replaced one of the four members. First, we made a Roadmap for the first four weeks, that followed the Agile method, with one-week sprints. We also had a bi-weekly following form that was mandatory to fil.
For the Macro development, we organised a weekly meeting to follow the progress. The general Roadmap included micro-game integration steps to check the integration procedure into the macro-game. In the end of the project, every two days, a new build were proposed, allowing the QA team to playtest.
Work Tools
Following forms
The objective of this form was to request the micro-games development status, and their personal targets for the next sprint. As the project progressed, we were able to identify those who needed help. This form also helped us to have a verry good insight of the project progress.
The Macro Organisation
We insisted that the Macro team maintains an asset list. We wanted them to be able to assign tasks to different peoples, and to have a better overview. We were able to establish priorities easier and to verify that the deadlines were respected.
The Macro team to Micro team communication
To integrate all the micro-games into the macro-game, programmers have developed tools for easier integration.
Programmers wrote a document with all the specs for developed to integrate developed micro-games. We also wrote a little summary with only the essential so that everyone can check if his micro-game can be correctly integrated.
The integration
In order to integrate the micro-games, we created a folder for each student. The objective was for the programmers to collect the updated micro-games on these folders. To communicate between the Macro team and other students, we established a tracking list. On this list, each student could indicate if the micro-game is updated and ready to integrate. On their side, programmers could indicate if the micro-game has bugs or if the integration isn’t possible.
Help within the project
To promote help in the team,we set up a quest board. The board’s objective was to ask other people for help in exchange a little remuneration like coffee, chocolate, cookies etc…
Conclusion
Global organization and forms
Our first problem was we received we didn’t receive enough feedbacks from the other students about the established organization. We asked too much information and our objectives for deadlines was not clear enough, so they were misinterpreted by many people.
The Macro organization
We insisted that the Macro team maintains an asset list. We wanted them to be able to assign tasks to different peoples, and to have a better overview. We were able to establish priorities easier and to verify that the deadlines were respected.
The integration
The micro-games folders were good because the project was not long. The method wasn’t viable in a longer project where git would have been the answer. We took this decision because the students don’t have good skills on git. The Macro team, on the other hand, worked with a git.
The quest board
Everybody found it funny, but it was simpler and quicker to ask someone nearby.
Post Mortem
For Macro team, we didn't really have much trouble. I think we had pretty good communication. For the micro-games, I felt like we were too distant with the other students. We just communicated with too large of a group each time. Therefore, it created a gap between us and the other students. We should have created groups of 10 students, that way the communication would have been easier, and we could have talked one on one about the issues the student had, especially for the issues about understanding the assignment.
However, I was able to develop my organization and communication skills in management. Working as a project manager also allowed me to learn from others and sometimes to be inspired by their method.