Guardian's Legacy Postmortem - MS501

It’s kind of crazy how much I learned in this class- and how much I wish I’d had this one earlier rather than later in my program. In some past classes, I remember showing a lot of reluctance towards SCRUM, which I had ostensibly been using since my very first semester at UAT when I took GAM105. That was four years ago!

Despite that, my experiences through my undergraduate studies sort of hardened me against SCRUM- from having to fumble through Axosoft in Production Studio to times when I felt like we were better served not worrying about making a project backlog. While I’d read the book for the class before, I don’t really think I learned the lessons from that, either, and generally felt like SCRUM was a miserable part of the games industry that I’d have to be dealing with since I wanted to work in it.

I think I carried this view into my graduate studies as well- and up until this class, I was still very on the fence about Agile/SCRUM as a whole.

This class, without a doubt, changed that and the way I really think about the role of a producer in a SCRUM-using team. Chapter 3 of the book, when we went through it, managed to turn around my view of the philosophy and I really began to understand why SCRUM was set up the way it is, and just why those elements make for better projects in general and why they can help games come to life.

I only wish I’d been able to take the class sooner! There’s so much that I learned in this class that it’s difficult to encapsulate it in just a few sentences. I suppose in a way, I learned everything- or at least the functioning of video game-producing SCRUM teams, as well as how the project management format is uniquely suited for software production where there are many unknowns, and much more.

Of course, that was all just from the book side of the class and our discussions. In class, I found that there was also a HUGE amount to learn as well, though my lessons came in a different format than expected.

Working with the Studio teams this time around was just as interesting as the last one, and I got to see some of the fantastic work that’s being done on Guardian’s Legacy. I knew this one was running in the Studio but never had really seen what they were up to within the class itself. They’re a lot further along in their production than some of the other games I’ve worked with, and so it was an interesting challenge to face. Their documentation, which likely had been finished months ago, needed to be updated to match the game’s reality and current plans for the future.

Working with the team and trying to spearhead their efforts in that regard took up most of my time.

What went right?

I think my GDD Update went very well. I’m a firm believer in the idea that as the central document for a game, a GDD needs to be comprehensible to anybody coming onto the project. Unfortunately, so many of the ones I’ve seen have never been written for an audience before- and that included the initial one Guardian’s Legacy was using. When I first saw it, it was 54 pages long, and contained a lot of details about the game- even going so far as to give in-depth formulas that would be needed for damage calculations. However, critical details about the game were also missing from it- such as descriptions of how the Node system worked.

I spent a good deal of time working to resolve this with a new GDD, while still preserving the excess information contained within the old one in different documents. When I was done, I had trimmed the page count down to 15 and had linked a number of documents to it that were supposed to contain important information to those working in each department. I am hoping the leaders of these departments use what I set up for them, as it will make their lives much easier moving forwards in development.

I also think that communication went really well. Being an on-campus student helps a lot while working with the game studio teams, and I think that the ability to go in and meet with my team on a regular basis helped a lot. I did my best not to be overbearing with it and show up every time they met, but I tried hard to be available and communicative with my team lead about what I was able to do to help the project.

As I mentioned up above, I feel like the last thing that went really well was just the simple fact that I understand SCRUM and its purpose now and really want to carry it forwards with me from now on.

What went wrong?

A few things did go wrong whilst working in the class. I think the first thing is related to the sheer fact that I didn’t feel like I knew the team well enough (or felt like I was in the right position to) ask them to implement SCRUM values into our working. They’ve been doing the project for a year, and they’ve found that what seems to be working for them is not quite in line with Agile philosophy. While I wish I could have been able to implement that as a part of my work, I didn’t feel like I should come in and change things up.

I had difficulty compiling all the information. While I finished the GDD for my team, despite my other hours of work I’m still trying to get the rest of the documents finished for my team. It’s been hard because the designers seem to have left a number of systems unfinished on paper or the paper versions don’t match up with what’s in the game. This makes me fear that I’m wasting my time creating outdated documentation, but hopefully I’ll hear back soon.

My role was unclear at the start of the class, as they hadn’t had a Master’s student working with them before and so they weren’t sure what to expect. The very first week, it was suggested that my duties for the game be those of the SCRUM master, but I was extremely worried about taking on that responsibility when I was in a documentation class. We ultimately went through the game and got me working on useful documentation instead, and so this issue was solved with a bit of time and communication.

What is the most important takeaway?

Oh, without a doubt, the most important thing to take away from this class is my newfound understanding and desire to implement SCRUM in software development. It’s crazy how quickly I became a believer in it, but just going through the book and getting to understand why things function how they changed a lot of my thinking. I am intent on carrying that into my future.