Tara Boonngamanong PPJ#9 and Personal Postmortem

Modeling: 1 hr

Meeting: 1 hr

Total: 2 hr

PPJ 9

What went right this week: This week was pretty simple, there was no work needed for the UI. I got to focus on remodeling the destroy building since the older version was not clean and the poly was too high. The newer one is much more simple and the UV is pretty reasonable. 

What went wrong: Nothing went wrong so far, will wait to hear back from the team.

What's next: Help out with whatever the team needs help with. 

Personal Postmortem 

3 things that went right  

  • Online team project can be very hard so I’m glad that the team stick together till the end and make sure that the game is done. I really appreciate those who kept the positive energy going and take on extra roles for the team! 
  • The game development looks pretty clean in terms of code functionality and bugs. The particle effects are also much better comparing to the one from last term and can definitely be a strong portfolio piece for those who are involved with them.  
  • While I was not expecting to be doing the game UI in the beginning, personally, I’m glad I took on that role. The result turnout very well and the straightforward communication that the UI team had made everything much easier.  

3 things that need improvement  

  • Organization: from what I saw coming in the project, most of the tasks seem to be given out during meetings and posted on discord. While those are nice to have, I don’t think it was productive for a project this size. If I could go back in time, I would recommend the team to use Trello to keep track of everyone’s progress and goals. The team could also benefit from a project manager or someone who’s (only) role is to check in on everyone and make sure that the work is ok before passing on to the next person. 
  • Communication: I personally was zoomed out by week 4 and any online call that is longer than an hour was very hard to sit in. With the UI team, Peter and I was able communicate efficiently via messages. Anything wrong or needed, he will send a message to me right away and I will try to get back as soon as I can. Things went pretty well and we got a lot work done in time. However, with the bigger art team, most of the discussion seems to be during the 1.5 hour 1-3 calls a week and that is where I struggled with a lot. In my opinion, the call should only be 30-minute max. Each call should have clear objectives listed out and make sure that people have things ready to discuss right away. Art meeting for example, should not be about design and specific issue should be discussed separately and directly not with the whole team (this will save a lot of time). And lastly, communication should continue outside the calls. 
  • Having a clear goal and setting limits: Design and narrative should have been set from the beginning. While we were ambitious, our vision was unclear, and we wasted a lot of time. For future project, no design added on should be made unless the main structure is done.

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