First off, I loved working with our group. We had a solid game concept and were able to execute it a mere week after we began coding, which afforded us the time to build in features and ideas we thought were core to the experience or added to the overall fun. I would (and probably will) end up working with everyone from the group on projects in the future.
Our game was very well scoped. Because we began coming up with game ideas a couple weeks before GSD3 started we had already began cutting out features and scoping for a 10 week work period. We implemented all the core features and some fun additions on top of that.
Jim and Jayson are both great artists, and Jayson is also a skilled musician. Thanks to them we had a pretty-looking game even in the earliest prototype stages, and it only got better as time went on. If we want to continue developing the game in the future we’ll need much more art, but we had a satisfactory amount inside of our given work period.
Because of the way we wrote our engine, we were (and are) able to add new features very seamlessly. This became ever more apparent late in development, as I was able to completely rewrite our collision system without interfering with the rest of the code.
We were never able to release a test alpha and get feedback on the game. It was planned from the beginning and we worked to have it done around week six, but we never got the game in a state we considered playable by other people outside the team. I regret never having done this, but if we continue working on the game in the future we will definitely gather feedback early on.
Perhaps the biggest and most unavoidable issue was our lack of work on the game after about week six. This wasn’t the fault of any one member, but instead a combination of burnout and busyness in other areas of school and life. Ideally we would’ve had all ten weeks to focus solely on the game, but we’re in college and life is a thing that happens.
This project helped me greatly improve my leadership, group work, programming, and time management skills. I am blessed to have been able to have taken part in such an awesome class and project. I am excited for the future and I can’t wait to see what we’ll all accomplish.