After first milestone: Green Light Meeting :)

Day 9 - 16th June

Today I was faced with a hit from the role of producer. 1 of my artist, not mentioning names here, stressed out and started crying. The rough idea of what happened was that game idea the artists were working on was scraped off after the product owner thought that it might be too difficult to finish in the summer. That artist apparently was too ‘married’ to the game idea so much that he/she could not take it after I announced to scrape off the game idea after the scrum. He / She went to the toilet to cry and also cried in the office. This really put me into test on how to handle the situation; firstly I started to try to talk to her. But being stressed out and crying, no one in the world will listen at this point of time. I tried to give her some time to cry all out but when I felt the team morale was going down due to this incident. I seek for help, as my embed staff was in the meeting, I looked for my producer mentor, Rik for assistance. He immediately came over to help me even though he was discussing things with his own team. Thanks Rik! He talked to that artist and also with the help of the whole team encouragements. That artist finally stopped crying and tried to do some work. But that was not the end for me, as Rik and I felt that that artist was not really okay. And as my embed staff, Andrew had finish his meeting, the 3 of us held a mini urgent meeting in this office. Anyway, we felt that the best choice was to get Jason, Art mentor to talk to that artist. And this was I had been doing from morning till lunch. After lunch was producer meeting which helped me a lot as we had a lot of discussion about our team problems. Anyway, all producers’ meetings are to be kept confidential but I received a few tips to try aid the artist to overcome this tough period. However, most tips are not relevant to assist that artist due to that artist personalities and mindset. So is up to me to bring the team and that artist morale up up and up. ‘Welcome to the world’ Quoted to me by Andrew after the mini meeting. Hahaha. Anywhere did not do much work today as busy with team management after 2 meetings. Also learnt one important thing today, DO NOT get too attached with game ideas when brain storming. Learn how to think and trash them away if they are not useful even how brilliant your ideas are. So an advice to juniors or anyone if they are reading this blog, the first or second week of game development are the hardest as you will feel emotionally stressed out due to a lot factors. Don’t give yourselves so much stress! Hopefully I won’t get stressed out! Signed off.

Day 10 – 17th June

Today, my group was kind of rushing tasks for the green light meeting milestone tomorrow. I kicked off the day with the usual scrum meeting, and then assigned tasks for them to prepare for the green light meeting. That artist was feeling better but after some of that artist’s concept arts were given the thumb down to fit into our game idea. I sensed another crying session. OMG, I don’t want that as I am going to be busy monitoring the group progress for the milestone tomorrow. Luckily, it did not happen. Spent the rest of the day polishing up the idea for the green light meeting and the day passed by very fast. Nothing much happened today. Looking forward to green light meeting as I felt my group was almost done and prepared for the meeting.

Day 11 – 18th June

Well today my group was preparing for the green light meeting which was a milestone for us to present out idea to our the staffs in Gambit and also to the product idea. As the name suggested, it is the meeting which the staffs or the product owner will decide whether the idea is good enough to start development or ‘green’. If any group idea was given ‘red’, they have to re think of a better idea or fall back to backup plan if there is any. Luckily the 3 groups that presented today got a ‘green light’ which meant we are ready for production! Backtracked a bit, in the morning, there was a lecture on ‘Estimation’ by Philip. After the talk, I held the scrum meeting with my team and assigned roles to prepare for the green light meeting. Everyone was kind of excited and nervous at the same time for the green light meeting. Artists went ahead to sketch more concept arts; programmers continued with the prototyping; QA, designer and I polished the design document we had to present later. Time passed very fast today as we were actually rushing for time, and we presented the idea smoothly during the green light meeting. After the 20 minutes presentation, the staffs and the product owner went to a room to discuss about our idea, to give a ‘red’ or ‘green light’. Soon being the producer, I was called to the room to receive the comments and result of the discussion. Yes, tada green light! Our idea was commented for having a good level design and good fall back plans for the risks. So our idea was ready for production! Good job guys. But NO for me! I will be having more planning jobs in these upcoming days with my embed staff! Anywhere after the staffs left the room, I got my anxious group into the room to share the good news and share some feedbacks from the staffs. After that, as the day was ending, I decided to spend the rest of the time brain storming for team names. My group kind of decided on one, but will finalize tomorrow. Whee, one milestone over, 9 more to come. But I had learnt that my group was quite fast in finishing up tasks as the current main idea came up only 2 days ago. Well done guys. After work, 6 of us went for a basketball game to relax ourselves after a tired week. When is only the first official work week! After the game, I headed back to the dorm to prepare for dinner. To my surprise, my dorm mate cooked for me and left it in the fridge. Woot thanks for the dinner. I am happy that I had a good team and good dorm mates. Going dragged my tired body to bed. Bye!