Vision is a game that was developed in 2020 by students from SAE Melbourne. Each student worked on a variety of tasks and provided skills from the Games Development course but also the Audio, Music, Design, and Animation courses.
Communicate using online platforms with chat and video capabilities
The team behind Vision chose to collaborate exclusively using Discord. On the platform, you can communicate with voice, message and video. The team met every week to provide updates on tasks, establish progress and assign new work. The text channel was relied upon for communicating design and sharing resources.
Build and plan the project using a framework
Vision was guided in its development through the SCRUM framework. SCRUM is a method of bringing a project to life whereby requirements are identified and broken down into tasks and length of time to complete. Mapping all the tasks to requirements keeps everything on track and on time. Karl reflected that the framework made sure “time was not wasted developing aspects of the game that were not in the final product”.
Build a useful and appropriate tool kit
Each industry uses several widely accepted tools or concepts to manage work. Vision used various tools including Gantt charts, GitKraken Boards (KanBan boards), asset and task lists. Many of these tools are common with game developers but may not be familiar with creatives from other backgrounds Ð such as audio.
One big tip from Karl is to find tools that are useful but be flexible with how people use them. As Karl says “A tool is only useful if a person uses them” – a tool should aid a person and make the work easier to manage – for everyone!
Advice for managing projects
Karl reflected on the project and said “time is a precious resource”. Identifying your requirements early and resourcing those requirements quickly can help to save time. Failing to manage your time effectively can compromise the scope of a project – which can affect its overall success.
Karl’s advice is “whatever project you’re working on chances are it’s always going to be better if you had more time to work on it. So why not plan for that? Whatever your scope is, cut it in half. Plan to finish in half the time. You can always use the extra time to make it better.”
Download and play the Vision game on itch.io here: karl-eyre.itch.io/vision
