Higs Throws 'Em.....

So just handed in and presented one of our first group tasks for the year.  The assignment was to come up with a game design in groups and produce a game concept document, but the main task was to use the Agile SCRUM methodology to produce it.

This involved first defining all the high level tasks at the beginning which is referred to as the Product Backlog.  These items are then broke down into task and assigned to Sprints in which a collection of tasks are decided upon to be worked in a set amount of time.

There are then series of short meetings (scrum and scrum of scrums) where the tasks are allocated and the then reviewed in the second meeting to make sure that everything is going according to schedule.

There was 3 of us in our group and we had 2 weeks to produce the document.  We had a successful first meeting where we identified the product backlog and then sorted out the sprint.  As one of the team members were on vacation the second week, we thought it was important to make sure suitable tasks were assigned that were achievable in the time they were here and also got tasks that could be done whilst on holiday.

I have used the SCRUM methodology before in my day job, on much bigger projects, but we could still apply the same principles although I found at first we had merged the 2 types of meetings together (assignment and review) but I spotted that early on and was able to adjust the documentation.  This may have been my fault as I have not used the 2 meeting approach before and have usually just had the one daily meeting instead.  Neither approach is wrong as the whole methodology can be adjusted to suit the project.  I also thought the minutes produced might have been a bit too short but as there really wasn't a lot of material to be done and only 2 of us there wasn't a lot to put down.  It will be interesting to see what feedback we get in that respect.

The document we finally produced was a for a game called Higs Throws 'Em - a realistic / cartoon 3D strategy / action fusion game where the premise was about genetically modified creatures protecting a fort from genetically produced sea monsters on the planet Geoff where the main protagonist is a Horse / Pig creation, made by the Geoffians to protect them against the sea monsters.  The ammunition used are all forms of genetically modified rabbits, in some form or another.

Max has written a 'substantial' overview and back story, which may have been a tad on the long side but no worries.  Simon had been tasked with the game environments which was going to be a fort we was visiting on his vacation and my main task was to refine and draw the cartoon characters needed based on the initial concepts we had all come up with.

Overall I feel the assignment went well.  We all worked well together and the SCRUM methodology helped, however only when we were presenting the design the to class did I realise we had missed some items out of the document such as release platform and target audience.  But only minor points, I feel, and also they weren't in the assignment requirements when I checked back. 

Lets wait to see the feedback ;o)