Roberto Salim (Team Flaming Uranium) (ICT Project 2 / CP3047)

Project Title: 3D Turned-Based Strategy Game

Role: Project Manager

Teammates: Nicholas Soetio and Edward Pakpahan

Week 01

This week is the beginning of our ICT 2 classes. In the class, the project supervisor (Assoc. Prof. Roberto Dillon) requested us to submit the first cycle report of our project. However, an issue is raised here when we have no project to work on because of our first project in ICT 1 has been completely done. My teammates and I discussed with the project supervisor and he told us to ask our first client whether is the project really finished or not. If it is not finished yet, then we should continue to work on it but if it is finished, we can find something new to work on. The project supervisor also offers some of his project in gaming for us to select.

As instructed, we go and see our client for ICT 1, which is Dr. Insu Song. He told us that our project is basically done and we can choose to do whatever we want for ICT 2. In the next day, we met the project supervisor again, and told him the result of the meeting with the previous client. He then explain the details of the gaming projects he has now and we got the option to pick one of those or to start a new game project by ourselves.

The project supervisor give us a few days to decide.

Week 02

After discussing with my teammates, we decided to make a new game project about turned-based strategy game, which is somewhat similar to chess, but with several twists added, such as when 2 pieces met, a piece will not be just overtaken by the new piece. Instead, the 2 pieces will fight, and the space will then be overtaken by the winning piece.

Later on, we met the project supervisor again and told him about our idea. He told us that we can work on this project and he also requested a game documentation for our project. He then printed a game documentation template to aid us and explained it. He also told us that our first cycle report's due date is extended by 1 week, therefore we need to have it submitted by the end of the day.

By the end of the day, we finally submitted our first cycle report.

Week 03

This week, we are dividing the tasks and role of each member for this project. After discussion for an hour, we came up with the following:

Roberto (myself) will be the project manager (but I will also help them both in programming and designing as needed).

Nicholas will be the programmer.

Edward will be the design director.

In the class, we were told to finish a document called "Milestone List and Report". This will be submitted during audit in week 12. We managed to finish it by the end of this week.

Also in this week, we had a meeting with the project supervisor (which is also our client now). We finally discussed in detail how our game would be and he gave us suggestion to improve the game, where instead of making something too-similar to chess, we could start the game with no pieces in the field (or maybe only king) and the rest of the pieces will be later placed by the player. We then told our client that maybe we can make 2 modes, with this one as the secondary mode (and will only be implemented if we had the time).

Last but not least, since we are going to implement our game with Unity3D. We started to search for available 3D assets from the Unity store and the internet. This includes the character models, animations, weapons, and many more. We also decided that our game's theme will be 2 races fighting each other, which is Human and Undead races. By the end of this week, we were able to get the required assets, but some of them are not free, so in this week, we are still calculating the estimate budget for our project.

Week 04

In this week's class, we are supposed to submit our second cycle report and the game documentation (which will be attached to the cycle report). The division of task are as following:

1. Edward and I did the Cycle Report.

2. Nicholas and I created the Game Documentation.

3. Edward will be creating the artworks (such as: game poster, logo , etc) for our game.

4. Nicholas will do the purchasing of the 3D assets. We have decided that our budgets will be around US$ 150.

Week 05

Since we are going to present the project's overall details this week, we decided to finish the presentation slides. The artwork (game poster) that Edward created on the previous week will be featured in the slides.

In this week as well, we finished writing the Project Scope Statement together.

In the class, we finally presented the presentation and got the feedback from the project supervisor as following:

Week 06

In this week's class, we learn about quality management where we need to consider the metrics to use to measure the quality of the project. The documents we need to write are the Quality Management Plan, Quality Metric and Quality Check List. This documents will be the responsible of Edward and myself.

Also, in this week, Nicholas and I finally started the coding of the arena's. I basically created the terrain asset using Adobe Photoshop and Nicholas works more on the coding part (JavaScript). My task is to help him found and fix the logic/coding error when he's unable to find/fix the source of the error.

By the end of this week, the following tasks has been completed:

1. Edward and I is almost finished with the Documentation. Edward is still searching for ideas for the splash screen.

2. Terrain assets created.

3. Nicholas and I has managed to set up the arena using JavaScript code, where in the arena, there will be the tiles (terrain) and the 3D characters placed in their initial location.

Week 07

In the early days of this week, Edward has finished with the splash screen, which is an animated image (GIF file) of our team name (Flaming Uranium). He ask for our feedback, and we said it is excellent.

There is no class this week because it is a public holiday.

Also in this week, we decided to update the game documentation (with the more details of each character, i.e. attack power, movement range, attack range, HP, etc). The cycle report is done by all of us and the updated game documentation is done by myself after discussing with Nicholas.

Lastly, Nicholas started to play around with the animation for the 3D characters, however, he is stuck with several characters from the Undead Race (Skeleton Pack) because there is error when running the animation. Edward and myself also tried to animate the skeleton pack, however, we are also unable to do so. Because of this matters, we emailed the creator of the Skeleton Pack and waited for his guide.

Week 08

The creator of the Skeleton Pack replied us this week. He told us that we need to use Mecanim Animation for the characters.

In this week's class, we learnt about Log and Risk Register. The project supervisor also told us to submit our third cycle report by the end of the day. Since Nicholas and I are still busy modifying the game documentation. Edward will be the one in charged of cycle report 3 and I will finalize it, like do a final check and add/edit the document wherever necessary.

Edward and I also started to create the questionnaire as we need to get the feedback from the Beta Testing which will be held on next and the week after next week. For Nicholas, he will implement the movement range for each character.

Week 09

In this week's class, we learnt about creating a work breakdown structure (WBS). Edward is the one in charged of creating the WBS and I will then finalize it. The division of task this week is shown below:

1. Edward and I will create WBS.

2. Edward will finalize the splash screen and he will also created the main menu design materials (i.e. buttons)

3. Nicholas and I will implement the attack range of each characters and the options to attack if there is multiple opponent in range. We will also implement counter-attack feature for attacked character if the attacking character is in range.

Since our game is not ready to be tested yet, we decided to do the testing next week.

All of the tasks above is finished by the end of the week.

Week 10

In this week, I found inspiration to boost learnability and memorability from the game "Kings and Legends", which is by showing the details of each character through a card when a character is hovered. I decided to ask Edward to design a card template for both the Human and Undead race, which he managed to finish within 1 day.

In the next day, I fill in each card's details basing on the game documentation.

Nicholas's task this week is to implement the skill of each character.

In this week's class, some of our classmates tested our game and has given their feedback by using the questionnaire provided.

Week 11

For this week, Edward will continue to work on the design of the main menu.Whereas, I will analyze the questionnaire feedback and afterwards, Nicholas will be modifying the game and fixing the bugs found based on last week's testing feedback.

Also in this week, I started to look for sound effects and background music for the game.

Week 12

In this week, Edward helped me to find the sound effects that I didn't manage to find. Afterwards, Nicholas and I implemented the sound effects and the background music to the game.

In this week's class, we presented our game's details and the demo of our game. The client seemed pretty satisfied as he said that we could enter this project into competition if we can add particles effects and add the fields effects, to make it not too similar to chess.

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Overall Summary

What I Did?

For this project, I mostly do the managements since I am the project manager for this project. Aside from this, I also helped a lot in the documentation and aid my teammates in design and coding whenever needed.

What I Enjoy?

Leading a team can be a massive headache sometimes, but it is pretty fun. Especially, when the project is finally done, I can feel the tremendous feeling of satisfaction overwhelming myself. :D

What I Found Difficult?

When helping the coding in JavaScript is pretty tough because I need to do a lot research on Google and sometimes it can take me days to solve just one bug/error.

What Really Worked?

The documentation are finished and the game worked pretty well. :)

Would I Continue to Work on This Project in the Future?

Yes, because I had the best teammates and it is fun creating a game. We can add the improvements as suggested by our project supervisor/client (Assoc. Prof. Roberto Dillon), such as to create the terrains with special effects on it, etc.