The Alchemist

Today is the last full day I have to work on the second assignment for the Production part of my course. Basically, the assignment was a workshop to help us come to grips with Scrum.

I won't explain what Scrum is here because its much more complicated to explain than it actually is to carry out. It's what's known as an agile software development method used to manage large development teams containing smaller independent development teams. Basically, it's used to make sure everyone is up to date with the project and that everyone's tasks are being completed in time. It involves meetings, meetings to plan meetings and then some more meetings to make sure the first meetings went well.

In short, it's a lot of meetings.

The main part of the assignment was to document a few of the meetings that we had to make sure we understand how Scrum works. However, our production tutor couldn't help throwing in some design work (understandable with him being the Creative Director of his own indie studio "White Paper Games") and the other part of the assignment was to create a Game Concept Document using the Scrum method to dish out roles and and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing in the review meetings (Scrum of Scrums for those savvy with Scrum).

The game we came up with is called "The Alchemist" and I'm really proud of how it's turning out. The document is shaping up nicely, I just need to finish the mechanics section and I'm done until the final meeting on Sunday night. It's just a shame we won't actually be making this game!
I plan on posting some of it right here on this blog so if you're even slightly interested then keep an eye out for more updates. I'll post some of the document itself and even some of the pretty concept art that I played no part in because I have very limited artistic ability.

To be continued..