Personal Case Study — Development Practice Assignment

Transcript

Hi, I’m Gavin, a student on the MA Indie Game Development course at Falmouth University.

My father always used to say “a rut is a grave with the ends kicked in.” The trouble is, I was stuck in that rut. I was doing 100mph down a dead-end road and getting nowhere, fast!

It was time to bust out of my somnambulistic daily routine, to take control, and to choose my own destiny.

At school I wrote text-based adventure games inspired by the works of Scott Adams. I took my friends on quests through ancient pyramids, haunted dungeons and derelict spaceships. To my surprise I found it just as rewarding to see them complete an adventure as I did to write it.

But my professional career is the diametric opposite: developing ‘serious’ software that most people aren’t even aware of. Groundbreaking? Yes. Rewarding? No

I want to write fun software again; that entertains; that creates a sense of achievement.

That’s why I want to develop games.

The first module, Development Practice, was everything I’d hoped it would be.

I recognised very early on my biggest challenge would be time management: making sure I had sufficient time for my family, to study and do the day job. Falling behind was not a option. To keep up with the workload I put in place a default diary and ran the module as a series of 1-week sprints, managing the work in Jira.

I use Agile Scrum and Source Control on a daily basis and have done for many years. One advantage I have over my peers is this has reduced my learning curve and allowed me to focus more on the project than the process.

Inspiration and coming up with the idea for a game has always been a showstopper, so I really looked forwards to the Creativity segment. The concepts we covered were absolutely mind-blowing. For me, this was a major highlight of the module and the area I felt I gained the most. I feel I improve each time I use a technique but I’m conscious I can do better if I step outside my comfort zone, be more courageous and take more risks.

I was very nervous about the first Rapid Ideation session. I had no idea what to expect, what the time commitment would be, and was fearful of not coming up with an idea! With a tight deadline and so many unknowns I was really worried about not delivering. But, as I once said to my Chief Exec, “Excuses don’t deliver products!” so I embraced the problem and just got on with it.

My workflow was simple: start with a quick brainstorm to harvest ideas, then choose one to pursue further. I felt most comfortable with the ICEDIP creativity model so ran with that, setting a 45 minute time limit for the Inspiration phase, and playing Steampunk sea shanties by Abney Park on Spotify to stay focused.

What dropped out was a maths based game with a very simple UI to help kids learn their times-tables — a world away from the RPG I wanted to develop!

The big takeaway from this exercise was to not force the creativity in a particular direction. It needs oxygen to grow and freedom to evolve in whatever way it wants.

And the best part? I really enjoyed it!

For the second Rapid Ideation I wanted to push myself a lot harder so set a much tougher targets.

Whereas before I’d used stock assets, this time I wanted to delve deeper into creating my own, to experiment with animation, particle effects and shader effects.

The concept I came up with was a nurse fighting Coronavirus with a big syringe full of vaccine. The goal: to kill the virus before the townsfolk get infected.

I found the animation, shader and particle effects in Unity were much easier than I anticipated. For the fog shader I mostly followed a tutorial but I’m particularly proud of the modifications I came up with to give it a soft-edge.

Ironically, the biggest issue I had was with colliders. Until now hadn’t appreciated the subtle differences between collisions and triggers or the need for masking.

Both game jams were really great fun, and I plan to do a few more over the coming weeks and months. I’ve found they’re a good sandpit to play in, to experiment with ideas and learn new techniques.

The knowledge and skills obtained in this module will be invaluable for the next: Game Development. Here I plan to build on what I’ve learned thus far and gain first-hand experience of a wider gamut of disciplines: game art, modeling, animation, sound and level design.

As I look to the future, my primary objective remains the same: to launch my own game development studio and achieve financial independence by the end of 20 25. To achieve this, I’ve set myself SMART goals that cover the three different aspects I need to focus on: personal development, business planning and financial.

It’s ambitious but with a fair wind and a calm sea, I believe it’s achievable.

List of Images

Figure 1. THORN, 2020 Default Diary

Figure 2. THORN, 2020 Jira Story Workflow

Figure 3. THORN, 2018 Agile Workflow

Figure 4. THORN, 2020 Code-line Management

Figure 5. THORN, 2020 Memory Jogger for Creativity Tools

Figure 6. RUBINO, 2020 Rapid Ideation (RI-1) Theme

Figure 7. THORN, 2020 Initial Brainstorm, RI-1

Figure 8. THORN, 2020 ICEDIP Inspiration Phase

Figure 9. THORN, 2020 Gameplay Footage, RI-1

Figure 10. THORN, 2020 Screenshot, RI-2 Game

Figure 11. THORN, 2020 Soft-edge Fog Shader

Figure 12. THORN, 2020 Virus Cloud Mask

Figure 13. THORN, 2020 Gameplay Footage, RI-2

References

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

Ghost logo (c) 2020 ScaryBlankPage/Genevieve Thorn

Doodle background (c) 2020 ScaryBlankPage/Genevieve Thorn

Chalkboard background (c) n.d. Microsoft Office Powerpoint Theme

Clipart courtesy Open Clipart Library, https://openclipart.org