Welcome to the end of Sprint 2! This means it is time for another recap of how everything went from a producer standpoint. Starting with this sprint, we will have an up to date download of Into the Woods available for you to try for yourselves. I encourage you to do so and leave us feedback on how we are doing so far! Before we cover what the different sections did, I wanted to talk a little bit about what time management means to game development (and by extension what it means for me as a producer).

   As you look at sprints for this game, it should be noted that they are each 2 weeks long. There are only 7 of them for a semester, this allows for holidays and some extra time at the beginning of the semester to assign teams. While it may sound like a huge amount of time, I assure you it goes by very quickly. For my team this means that when I ask them how long things will take, it is with the perspective that they should not be accomplishing everything before the end of the 2 week period. This can be difficult sometimes as making a game is not a straightforward process sometimes. Maybe you estimated only 8 hours of work on a model, but it refuses to co-operate in Maya, maybe you estimate 12 hours for coding a function and in reality it worked on the first try (yeah right) and somehow only took 6 hours. All of this is factored into the work I assign each member of the team, but there is almost always a variation to account for.

    So how do you succeed in correctly managing time as a producer if that is the case? It is actually a process more than an single action, but after you get some practice in you start to recognize the work flow of each team/individual. You start by looking through your (completed) backlog and planning our with your developer what items need worked on next. If you try and jump the gun by assigning things that can wait until later, you risk simply wasting time. Once you have those tasks/cards picked out for each group you can easily assign additional tasks during a sprint. This helps eliminate any down time the team may have between cards, this is VERY important because when people are not working, games are not getting made. If games aren't getting maid, you aren't getting paid! After you have assigned them additional work, be certain to track it properly. Some teams it is easier to get ahead in their overall workload, but that is something I will speak about next time. For now just remember: Everyone should be busy right up until the sprint is finished, if they finish before hand get them more work!

Sprint 2: Our very first build  

   Speaking of more work, Sprint 2 was filled with amazing work that we are going to go over here. I would like to again thank my team for their incredible efforts, especially seeing as this sprint we accomplished even more work than last time AND we pushed our very first build!

Programming Team: Chase, JT and Paul  

   This team is a great example of why you want to have an idea of what your working on in a sprint early on, so when they accomplish all of their work early you can get them more!

Chase was hard at work with player interaction in our world. One of my favorite things he did was spell tracking for the players attacks. As you can see it is not a complete homing system, but if fired close enough the spell will curve to get the enemy!

One of the other major components he worked on was the players ability to create potions. This is a major part of the players drive to collect items, so getting it running sooner rather than later is important.

JT was hard at work ensuring the player would have a sense of urgency and to this end he has crated our timer system. While the final game will be measured in days, this initial version is a simple minutes timer.

In addition to this he finalized a menu design so the players would have a way to actually start the game. In my opinion a proper menu is one of the most important things a video game can have.

Paul spent this sprint teaching the computer to chase the player. Several enemy types that will be included in future builds are designed not just to track the player but also chase them through the area. Here are a few examples of what to expect.

Level Design Team: Eric and Reggie

   While the final version of our game will have randomly generated maps, we wanted to use our first build to test the players speed and understanding of our game. To help us see how much fun could be had, our amazing level designers used their work from the first sprint to build 2 static maps for our first build.

It is really great seeing both maps available as this allows us to test player responses to a variety of level designs early in the game.

3D Art Team: Erika and Talia

   This was a great sprint for this team as some of our first models for plants and items were being crafted. As someone who has always struggled with modeling, I really appreciate how talented these two are!

While Erika was working on these, Talia was putting together models for our items so people can get an idea of what they are grabbing. Here is a preview!

2D Art/Animation Team: Atley and Daniel (and Olivia too!)

   The work this team puts out constantly amazes me. With our second sprint completed, a unique aesthetic has firmly taken hold of this game and I think it works really well with the game's settings! First we have some art by Atley with item icons (left) and menu concept art by our developer Olivia (right)!

Daniel has been hard at work on a character model as well.

He also found the time to get together some visual effects and animations.

Final Notes:

   While 7 sprints sound like a lot, it really isn't at all. The constant pressure to finish things in time for this game is pretty intense, but I have complete confidence in my team. I hope that those of you not in our program are inspired to try your hand at making a game some day, even if it is just for yourself. Though creating them can be very hard, the feeling you get when it you get everything running properly and fire it up for the very first time? It's one of a kind!

   Thank you all again so much for your support and please try out our game! There are links inside to player feedback surveys, and we hope you enjoy our work!

    -Nathan