Major Project 5: Project Management
Team Communication:
We used various different communication methods while developing our project and the early prototype. This was to make sure every member of our team knew what they had to work on in these early stages as well as discussing the work we would have to down the line. Our main method of communication was Discord as we created a discord server specifically for our project. However, we haven’t regularly used this as we were working on the prototype or early design work. When we get into full development, this will be fully utilised as it will help us keep track of the progress of each member more effectively.
Despite not using the Discord server prominently, we used direct messages on Discord to give feedback on parts of out project. A specific example is feedback I received on the player walking speed within our project prototype as the player was quite slow which could impact the player’s enjoyment.
In this early stage, we used Google Drive and in person discussions to develop our ideas for the project. Google Drive was useful as it allowed to create documents to make sure all members of the team knew what the project idea was, have an early idea of the assets we would need and know what our plan is for the weeks ahead. Max (Level Designer) and I were the main contributors to the Google Drive documents with the other team members adding some input for parts of the documents. When we were together at University we would discuss parts of our project as well as the early pre-production work we were doing.
Microsoft Teams was another communication method we used. It was mainly used to communicate to our lecturers and to clarify any questions we had about our project proposal. To communicate within our team we didn’t really use this as our other communication methods were already acceptable for what we needed.
Asset List:
Using Google Sheets we made an early asset list for the 3D modellers. This allowed them to assign these models between themselves so they each had an acceptable amount to create. The models were put into different phases to describe their importance with Phase 1 being the most important models and Phase 3 being the least necessary. Although models didn’t need to be completed at this stage, some of the models were created to test different visual styles and to warm up the skills of the 3D modellers.
Project Plan:
We also made a Gantt Chart using Google Sheets to show an early plan for how our project should progress after we have finished our proposal. The different roles within our team have different colours on the chart and it is separated into three sections representing the full development stage, alpha stage and beta stage. Max (Level Designer) is shown in purple, I (Programmer/Blueprinter) am shown in green, Lachlan (UI/UX Developer) is shown in blue and the 3D modellers (Cameron and Jack) are shown in orange.
