FF1

Yesterday we spent time planning out FF1. There was some confusion in the morning when one of our IP's starts saying we need to cut a part of our game we all find important. After a lot of discussion and some clarification from Carlos we had a better understanding of what he was getting at. So, instead of saying we were going to "cut" a feature, we were able to place it in a later milestone. The purpose of this was to spend more time making sure our battle is where we want it before moving on to another task. I think this plan will work well, after our talk with Carlos we all had a much better idea of how to organize our features for each milestone.

PoC

Today we presented our Proof of Concept. I think it went well, the feedback was mostly what I thought it would be. A lot of what people said we already knew, however, hearing over and over again about in-game feedback really pushed the point of how important it is.

Interesting day

Today was an interesting day we had a discussion about communication. This happened because one member lost control of his temper. Besides that we fixed a few issues with code we were having today. So I can finally add images to the menu which is already working internally. I can't wait to see what we can get done tomorrow now that we are able to load our art into the game.

Work

With POC coming up immediately followed by FF1 I don't think were gonna have any days off. We have a lot of work to get done and not much time. On top of that we still have to do our ICP work every week. We have to push even harder now to have some game play by wednesday. This is going to be a challenge because our rendering wasn't scheduled to be finished until thursday. On the plus side, we've already done some integration so once rendering is up we already have some things done to work with it.

TDD review

After a lot of work on our Technical Design Document we got our review back today. As first attempts usually go, we have some corrections to make. Things are starting to get hectic with project work. We have TDD fixes and Proof of Concept tasks that must be completed. Because we already have a full schedule with just Proof of Concept work, we must spend addition time to get everything done. I'm not worried about accomplishing these tasks, as long as everyone on the team works hard.

Finally, we can start some real programming work!

The tech doc was a lot of work and I'm sure we'll have some corrections to make, but it feels great having it completed at this stage. Our first day of programming felt kind of slow because we had to start with an empty project and add parts one at a time. In addition our data storage on Alien Brain has been very unorganized, thankfully, we've been working to correct this. Within a few days once we have all of the base solution and functionality set up, work on individual tasks will be allot easier. I can't wait to see how much we can accomplish over the next two weeks.

Spring Break!

Spring break is going to be pretty nice and relaxing even though I will be doing some work. Everyone on the team has a few goals. Code wise I will be playing with Lua a bit, getting it set up and a better understanding of how to work with it. In addition, we all have tasks to complete for the Technical Design Doc or the Asset List. We'll have a due date on the document stuff so we can all review it and make any necessary changes.

Aside from Dark Matter work I'll have a few varying things going on during this break. I've been accepted to Final Fantasy XIV alpha testing which starts on the 6th so I'm excited to get a chance to test that.

Sadly, my father will be visiting for a short time because his cousin just passed away who happens to live south west of Orlando in Lakeland. I plan to attend his funeral service with my father.