Lessons Learned from Sprint 1

Michael Cameron
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

In this fast paced world you hear all the time that you either put the time in and sink all those hours in otherwise you will always be behind. While I believe there is some truth to that, there is actually something deeper that gives you the results you really want.

Below is the outcome of my first sprint, the lessons I have learned, what has inspired me, helped me, and will maybe help you. In actually this is my 12th sprint. But this sprint feels like Sprint 1 as I had a moment of realization this sprint.

The lessons learned below have me feeling that i never started my sprints really. and now is the time I actually finished my first sprint.

“focus photo of brown pencil and Field Notes book white printer paper” by Helloquence on Unsplash

How invested are you?

This sprint started off much like my other ones and I would go through the motions. I would say I would continue to work more hours and do actual progress. but like many of the other sprints it became a solid line of not actually achieving what i wanted during the sprint. I would get distracted or I would make excuses.

I asked my self if this where to disappear and go away would I still be happy. It surprised me how I would rather stop playing my games and getting extra sleep if it meant that I could make something that the world can see. Even if it fails at least I knew I tried.

Get Accountable

Halfway through this sprint, I decided that if I don't complete something, make some kind of progress then I would dissolve what I have and go back to the normal work life style. figure out why am I wasting my time and my worry about something if I am not achieving or working towards achieving what I want.

Much like my last post Commitment to the craft stated I was inspired by this post

I decided to get some accountability partners, stake holders. and support from my family to see if this can be something that can be larger than it is.

Just Do

Instead of looking at tutorials and copying and pasting what the tutorial tells me there is so much to gain from taking a problem and just figuring it out. This sprint’s challenge was to create a pong game. The emphasis was understanding Sprites, UI and AI development in Unity3d.

I was pretty impressed with the outcome and how much i’ve learned from directed tutorials on a topic I needed. instead of watching an hour tutorial it was finding the most important part that solved my current problem and learning that. Other tutorials there is so much that you forget by the second week.

Pong Proof of Concept

My advice is seek out tutorials that answer the problem you are solving today. not the problem you will have in 3 months. It is good to know what you are getting into but your time is too valuable to just watch videos for 2 weeks and accomplish nothing.

So what’s next?

In this next sprint I will be working on a paper prototype to make sure the fundamental question about the game I want to make is answered, which is is this game fun?

I will also be taking this sprint to work on a stylized asset to put up on the asset store. At the very least I want to make sure it is completely modeled by the end of this sprint.

Finally I will be taking the time to learn about A* algorithm for movement of characters as that will become one of the first things created when I go to the prototyping phase in unity3d.

Thank you everyone, Stay Awesome

Michael Cameron

Written by

Father, Husband, Software Engineer, aspiring Game Developer and Indie Game Studio Owner

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