Yes. My Post-Mortem review has been due for a week now and I have been feeling really guilty about not posting it on time. So here goes..
Firstly, I want to start off by saying that I have a learned a lot from this prototype. There have been a lot of "Oh! This is my first" moments like working in a team, within a time frame, first prototype, first scripting language and well, a lot of stuff honestly. In all, it's been an incredible learning experience.
Now to the Post-Mortem..
Stuff I learned on the personal front :
- Working with a well defined team and within a defined time frame (4 weeks to be precise).
- Working for a client and delivering a product keeping the client's requirements in mind.
- Prototyping a game. Lua really helped. I must say Lua is really powerful and convenient when prototyping and I underestimated its value before. And, MOAI with its base in Lua provides a really awesome development environment, for churning out prototypes.
- Working my ass off during the crunch period. :P I still remember the last line of code I put in to randomize the cheese drops was an hour before the final pitch.
- Organization. Working within bounds. Keeping up with sprints. Making my code readable.
- And lastly, that I am fairly good with 2D art and can pull off decent sprites. I love sprites. Yes. I just love saying the word 'sprites'. Sprites. Sprites. Sprites.... :P
Now, about working as a team..
Positives :
- Communication. We had a Facebook group set up where we updated each other on the progress. It proved to be a great tool to keep updated and stay in touch. We also texted or called each other when needed.
- Patience. We remained patient at all times and kept our cool.
- We really respected each others opinions and ideas. Mike did a great job of trying to marry our ideas and coming up with a resolution that agreed with everyone.
- Our presentations and pitches were always up to the mark. Thanks to Mike.
- I stepped in with fresh artwork at the last moment, which really helped transform the game.
- Yuntao really helped with porting the prototype to the iPhone.
- We feel that our prototype really hit the spot according to the client's requirements, target platform and demographic.
Negatives :
- The biggest negative was not having an artist. Good artwork can really improve the game's appeal.
- We underestimated the complexity of our game. That's why we didn't do a lot of work in the first week, which caused a lot of workload in the last week.
- Triston and Yuntao did not learn Lua during the start and tried to jump straight into MOAI, because of which they were struggling with their tasks.
- My team members did not complete their assigned tasks on time.
- Mike did not do a good job at delegating tasks. He was not assertive when needed. Because of which I had to step in and breakdown the tasks.
- I felt like I had a lot of workload and was really exhausted by the end.
- Our dry run did not go that well. The presentation could have been better.
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