Results and reflection from the 2nd rapid ideation sprint.

Goals

The goal for this sprint was to improve the usefulness of the UI design stage, and have a better balance of time between UI design and implementation. This was a learning outcome from the pervious rapid ideation session where, while I had planned it out, spent too much time in ideation which caused a paralysis in later stages by not refining the idea to a more producible goal. To produce an actual functioning, interactive artifact.

A secondary goal was to try new things, specifically building a functional executable in the Unity framework within the ideation timeframe.

Success for me in this sprint will be a playable prototype of a game.

Initial Learnings

At the 50% mark, I had already accomplished more than the previous sprint. I had a significantly simpler flow diagram, a mood board and a UI prototype. The unity code was functional and I was still working through various tutorials on how to solve various problems related to isometric grids. The development of the mood board, followed by the selection of a pre-packaged tileset significantly speed up the development of the game. While I do not think the approach of outsourcing sprite design is a sustainable process, it enabled me to focus on my goals and prevent another paralysis.

In the later stages of the development, I was confronted with a number of open tasks and pathways, with limited time remaining. One example of this was to decide on building out the full upgrade tree in a rather unsustainable manner using many compound if statements or switch case clauses, or to refactor the work already done into a more sustainable - and easier to complete dynamic unity resource loader. Given that the code already worked, and that it would just be a simple repetitive action to replicate the code to support the remaining upgrade paths, I chose the more challenging tasks and refactored the upgrade tree to use dynamic resources.

The zone of proximal development. It is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. (VYGOTSKY 1978:86)

Thinking about the “zone of proximal development” (VYGOTSKY 1978), it is implied that trying to learn something that is outside of your zone of proximal development will result in failure, while you may be able to imitate something you are shown. The many tutorials watched during this session did not often show the simple way of building out upgrade trees, which caused me to struggle. When I decided to return to knowledge I already had, and built the code out manually, without using dynamic loaders, I was able to achieve success. Only then, after achieving the goal, was I able to imitate what I had learnt.

Failures

I do not see the use of 3rd party sprites as a particularly enjoyable facet of this development. It was a means to an end, and allowed me to leap over a particularly daunting task into an area which held more interest and challenge for me. However, I feel this should be a task that I approach in future game development jams.

The idea that high effort equals low ability is one of the worst beliefs students can have. It is virtually impossible to do anything worthwhile without sustained effort. (Dweck 2010)

While graphics development is incredibly difficult for me, without practice, it will remain so. I have to switch my mindset from that of an entity theorist to that of a incremental theorist. (Scott and Ghinea 2013)

References

  • DWECK, Carol S. 2010. ‘Boosting Achievement with Messages That Motivate’. Education Canada 47(2), 5.

  • VYGOTSKY, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society. Harvard University Press. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjf9vz4 [accessed 18 Nov 2020].

  • SCOTT, Michael James and Gheorghita GHINEA. 2013. ‘Educating Programmers: A Reflection on Barriers to Deliberate Practice’. arXiv:1311.0390 [cs] [online]. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0390 [accessed 18 Nov 2020].