Sprint 2-5: Crystal Tile, AlertWindow And Resource Bar Implementation

Sprint Two: Growing Crystal Tile Implementation

Individual Work:

In sprint one; I have implemented the different event tiles, which will affect the entire map positively or negatively. As I had no experience with game design, I encountered difficulties at first while trying to create a new event tiles. In addition, there were many bugs that need to be fixed after the implementation of the new tiles, with my prior knowledge on java language.  With the help of an in-depth research and data collection method, I managed to solve the bugs.

In sprint two, I have created a new growing crystal tile, which is an entity, which extends Growing Resource class. It is a special environment, which is very hard to reach. At the same time, it will eventually slow down the speed of the resource agent at the time of walking through the crystal tile. The speed will reduce depending on how far the distance is between the crystal and the resource agent. For the design of the crystal tile, it will be a small crystal at first and it will slowly grow bigger after some time.  I had some discussion with the art team on slack and in the studio about what kind of crystal design. I wanted it to be, where they helped in drawing and designing the tiles as I described. Other than that, I also work some part of the features of carnivorous plant. It is a normal plant at the beginning and does not make any harm to the surrounding. However, when it reaches to the second stage it will harm the resource agent. When it goes near the plant, this will in fact damage the health of the resource agent. The amount of the damage depends on the distance between the plant and the resource or agent. With the experience from the first sprint, I was able to handle well for the second sprint such as planning my time to get the work done on time. The difficulties that I faced in this sprint are the implementation of the crystal. It did not show up in the map when I implemented it at first. However, after few tries I managed to get it done perfectly.

In sprint three, I continued the work on the crystal and some of the carnivorous plant features that leftover from last sprint, as both of the crystal and carnivorous plant are growing resource. It highly affected the agent entity when it goes near to them. In this sprint, what I did is to improve the features and fix some bugs and issues from last sprint. For example, I improved the features of crystal images that did not display on the map as there is some error in TextureManager and crystal class. Beside that, I wrote JavaDoc in my crystal class. The crystal class extends the GrowingResource. 

In sprint four, I implemented a new class called Alert-Window, which extends Abstract-Window. It is under renderers or user-interface and it is added to the Game-Screen to be shown up in the game. It is initially designed as a window pop up. There are 5 minutes left before the game is over as to notify the player to hurry up before the game is done. However, after many thoughts, it might affect the player concentration I think on the game and might interrupt the player, as the player still needs to click on the close button to close the alert window that pop up when there are only 5 minutes left. This might also take up some time of the player to close the window. Therefore, after the first implementation of the Alert-Window, I decided to change it to a game over pop up window where the window will show up. When the game is over, it let the player know that the time is over. It is necessary information for the system to output to the player.

Sprint Three: Continued Work on Crystal and Carnivorous Plant

In sprint five, which is the last sprint where the overall game is almost done but need some changes by fixing bugs and some new features as well. In this sprint, I implemented a new class called Resource-Bar under renderers/ user interface. It is used to put all the resource icons such as wood, crystal, iron, lava into the top UI bar. In addition, it displays the total number of resources that the player got. It is quite challenging to put the icons into the bar. I faced problems having it to be displayed on the bar as at first I was trying to code the icons inside the UIRenderer class within the drawBaseUI method. However, it only can display the words on the bar but not pictures. Even after I asked for help from my teammates, it seems hard to be solved.  After putting many efforts and brainstorms, I managed to solve it by creating a new method in UIRenderer class, which is called resource icon. Here, I can draw the icons, set all the position and place by myself and get the icons from the ResourceBar class to put it into the top bar. Besides implementing icons into the UI top bar, I also worked on UI of the technology, cost in the Technology, Tree class and decided on how much cost I should put for the different resources at different stages for the player to upgrade their technology.  The cost of each resource gets higher each time while the player unlocks a stage.

Group Work:

For the first four sprints, I was in the Team Dynamic; it was a team with five members. In this team, we built different types of dynamic tiles such as the lava tiles, plant, crystal, events, entities, and networking. Our individual work and task is clearly assigned and organised using a platform called trellis in order to track what needs to be done and who is responsible for the task. As a result, every member of us got the chance to contribute in the team. Other than that, our main way of communication is through slack as well as git lab ticket. During this project, we have developed a sense of teamwork skills. We set our dedicated roles and our own responsibilities before we start on a new sprint. We had followed proper management skill and decision-making skill. I have segregated different responsibilities to every team member. Every teammate conducting this project has excellent time management skill and technological competency. They have delivered the stipulated work within appropriate time without any further delay. On the other hand, several technological barriers were happening sometimes. In this kind of situation, our team members have handled this crisis very efficiently by overcoming the barrier within limited time scale. The entire work was not hampered due to sudden technical error. Periodically, we set our time every week and prioritise what needs to be accomplished of different task within stipulated time. We developed mutual respect and understanding towards each other. Even though we might have our differences and opinions we worked together closely to solve them through good communication. Throughout the overall journey, we have maintained an agile workspace. As a result, we all had enjoyed the project by receiving such a wonderful wok environment. Instead of having different views and opinions of each other, our team strictly followed participative decision-making process from the very beginning to the end of project. We exchanged our views and thoughts with each other and finally decided which strategy we should follow and which should not follow. While conducting the group communication we have faced immense challenges in interacting with each other due to language barrier.

Sprint Four: Implementation of AlertWindow

However, by using both verbal and non-verbal communication method w successfully overcome all the challenges and formed effective strategies and policies for making the project successful. Especially, Kenneth is very helpful and enthusiastic teammate who has contributed immense support and co-operation towards the team members. I have shared a good bonding with him. We stayed up late in the library for discussing innovative works and designs. We planned for working more perfectly on the project together for every sprint. While facing any kind of hurdle at the midst of sprints we have made an effective interpersonal communication with each other and found out the way on how to resolve the issue. Rest of the team members associated within this team has left immense dedication and support throughout the entire journey. We know our strengths and weaknesses well. Based on that strengths and weaknesses we stood up beside each other whenever we needed help in certain areas. Everyone learns to share in victory when things go well. We have re- strategized our plans where there is room for improvement on project. Before re-strategizing our plans and policies, we have collected the opinion of every team member associated with this project. As a result, all activities have been conducted very successfully and systematically with full co-operation of each teammate.

For the last sprint that is the fifth sprint, I joined in different newly formed group named as resource team group. This team is constituted with three members including me and our aim for this sprint is to finish off the game features relating to resources. The implementation is of the resource costing as well as the generation of resources on the map.  This is a smaller team and our communication might be more straightforward and easy. Each of us might need to handle more tasks and important features to the project as compared to my previous experience in a larger team. As it is a new group of team, we might not have sufficient time to get to know each other and communicate very well at first. However, we developed mutual respect and understanding towards each other, as we know that we had time constraints. Most importantly, we have showed equal respect and dignity towards every teammate associated within our project. By implementing anti-discrimination act within the project, we have given same priority to everyone. People who have language barrier were allowed to use non-verbal communication method as well. Our primary aim and objective was to make the entire plan very systematically and peacefully with the help of maintaining proper communication with each other. From that perspective, we became successful by showing respectful gesture with each other.

While describing five sprints I have identified some areas of improvements for conducting the entire project more perfectly in future. All the five sprints have been conducted within précised time, which is not sufficient in completing the project in detailed manner. Team members could have shared more effective bonding with each other while completing the activities. The emotional intelligence quality within my teammates was little bit lack, which made the performance more professional than enthusiastic and energetic. I addition, we have planned to expand our time span of activities more completing five sprints more detailed way.