New Workflow Management

This might be more interesting for the game developers reading this, and maybe not as interesting for those non-game devs. In that case, here's a picture of a cute puppy to make sure you want to keep reading:

So. Today I'm going to talk about project management, how we've completely changed the way we're doing it here at Clever Endeavour, and what we've learned in the process. We haven't been using the new system for a long time now (see: a week), but the lessons learned in exploring different softwares and different techniques remain valid.

There is a ton of great software out there for project management: Jira, Trello, Asana, Axosoft, Jixee.. just to name a few. This stuff tends to have details, options, compatibility with other software, movable and draggable and saveable and starable stuff. This is cool and all, but what do we really NEED?

At Clever Endeavour, here's what we need:

• See a big backlog of all the stuff we need to do
• Know what we need to discuss next
• Know what we need to be working on next
• Know what we should work on in this sprint (using Agile)
• Archive what was done and track how long we estimated for tasks vs how long they actually took
• Have a place for resources and things we might have to look at once in a while

Pretty basic stuff, right? We decided to go the simple route, and use a software called WorkFlowy. It's basically a text editor, with nested items. That's pretty much it. You can add hashtags and search by hashtag, and you can add people (@rich, @kyler, @alex) and then see what lines were associated with those people. This is what it looks like:

Each of those dots with the light grey circle around it means there are sub-tasks or lines nested under it. This way we have everything in one place, and it's simple and clear. No bells and whistles, but no functionality missing either. 

Most importantly, we've changed our morning stand-ups to "morning reviews" where we look at the Inbox (used to put things that we need to discuss or anything that takes more than 2 minutes to do and doesn't have a place in our WorkFlowy) and we look at our tasks from the previous day, then write down how long it took to do those tasks. 

What did we learn?

In shifting from our old system to our new system, we learned a few things. We learned that simplicity is key, and that the simpler something is, the easier it is to access information. This is important for keeping everyone up to speed. We also learned that we had been doing the daily stand-up the wrong way. We followed the instructions that you hear about from the usual Agile articles and books, but it wasn't getting the job done. We were talking but it wasn't helping us actually get on the same page and it wasn't helping us track and estimate the amount of time taken to do our tasks.

So far it's working really well, we'll see what the future brings!

TL;DR

• Simplicity is key
• Everyone needs to be on the same page and buy in to the system
• Big fancy software is useless if you're not already well organized
• Use software according to your needs, not to what's popular

Also, in case you're looking for online updates to Ultimate Chicken Horse, you can use our Steam forums to check out the newest fixes from the last update, and see the list of known bugs here. We're also planning another update soon, check our Twitter to stay in the loop!

Our GDC Experience & Online Updates

Hello people of the internet! Our deepest apologies that we seem to have been M.I.A. for a little while. There were two major factors that led to this: first, two thirds of us were at GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco all of last week. Second, we’ve been working on getting the online Beta more playable, and it’s been a ton of work. Let’s talk about it in that order… if you just want to hear about the online updates then skip down!

GDC

GDC was awesome. GDC is always awesome. It was our second time going, and this one was equally action packed and equally tiring, but a little less stressful. Unfortunately we had to leave Alex home to keep working on the game, and Kyler and Rich (the one writing this) went to San Francisco.

Our goals for this year’s conference were pretty varied. They included:

• Meeting with companies from other countries to figure out ways to make our game known in places like Korea, Japan, China, Brazil, and Turkey
• Talking to publishers about future games
• Meeting other game developers to continue to grow our network and to find new ideas and solutions to some problems we’ve had
• Meeting with some press to show them our game
• Having fun!

Going to try to keep this short, cause falling asleep at your desk is frowned upon in our culture. The show had a huge focus on VR this year, and it seems like every project that comes up is also in VR. This might seem like a fad now, but Kyler is convinced (and I’m almost convinced) that it’s here to stay.

Image taken from GDC16 official pictures.

Another big highlight was a talk given by Russ Pitts from Take This Inc. about “Depression-Proof Studio Culture”. This talk was about how to deal with mental health issues in the workplace and how to create an environment that is conducive to helping people with issues like depression, anxiety, etc. In the video game world, there’s a disproportionate number of people with these kinds of issues and so far we haven’t done a very good job helping out.

This was the only picture I found of his talk...

Some of the things that quite obviously contribute to these problems:

• Crunch time and crazy working hours, especially without additional praise or compensation
• Lack of sleep as a result of these things
• A space where mental health is seen as “not a real problem” and the common symptoms of depression and anxiety are attributed to personality traits
• Working in dimly lit, crummy locations or situations

Many of the talks were great and were inspiring, but this one was an extremely important one, especially for a small studio that plans to grow and needs to know how to create a safe space to talk about these kinds of issues.

Image taken from GDC16 official pictures.

It’s really a great thing to be able to talk shop with people from all around the world doing all sorts of different projects. At every party (see: each and every night), there were great people to meet and new perspectives to be learned. There was certainly a lack of sleep throughout the week / weekend, but waking up each morning knowing that we had GDC to look forward to made it all seem, well, possible.

Some other cool highlights, outside of the actual conference, included the “Musée Mécanique” (or mechanical museum) which housed a ton of really old school arcade games, all the way back to the mechanical machines that were used in the first arcades.

We also went to the exploratorium, where we explored. A lot. It’s basically a ton of interactive mini-exhibits relating to science in some way; some were phenomena of electricity and magnetism, some of optics and illusions, some of interpersonal interactions and social issues. Here are a couple of pics of an awesome spherical mirror and a piece of glass / mirror that allowed Kyler and Rich to combine themselves.

Online Work

We’ve been working on the online multiplayer portion of the game for the last little while, and have seen some steady progress. We pushed a new build of the game into the “OnlineBeta” branch on Steam, so players can play around with that. Keep in mind port forwarding is still needed to set up the game, but the major changes can be seen on our Steam forums: check out the fixes here and the list of known bugs here.

If you find anything that isn't on the list of known bugs, please let us know by filling out the bug report form! Again, thanks for the patience while we get it sorted out :)

Twas The Day Before Launch...

And not a creature stirred. Actually, many creatures stirred. Namely, the three developers on our game Ultimate Chicken Horse. We're stirring quite a bit to have as smooth a launch as possible, and it's a pretty intense experience.

The local game is playable, fun, and ready to rock, but the online multiplayer is still in a bit of a beta state. I know this is a disappointment to some, but on the bright side it will be functional and we'll have it up and perfect in no time. Our estimation in how long it would take to code was simply too low... but on the bright side, the main game on Steam is still the awesome thing you were expecting. We're finishing up the online stuff but you can access it in the beta branch on Steam by following these instructions.

Spoiler: it's not too easy!

We'll be the first ones to admit that we're not as ready as we would like to be, and that when we delayed the launch, we probably should have delayed it further. We made a mistake in picking this date without the estimation experience to know that it would bite us, but in life we need to make mistakes to learn. At the end of the day we think our game is super fun, and plan to let this mark the beginning of our relationship with players who will receive new content after launch. We don't think players will be disappointed with the game they're getting when they buy Ultimate Chicken Horse, and we think they'll be impressed when they see what we have coming.

Why aren't we delaying the launch again? Good question. First of all, we want to get the game in the hands of the people who have been waiting for it, even without a fully bug-free online branch. Second, press and YouTubers and streamers are already playing the game and are ready to launch their info / reviews / videos on March 4th. We don't want to miss the opportunity by having videos made and have the game not be available for purchase. As long as the world knows that the online is there and that a better version is coming, we should be fine. 

In more positive news though, our new launch trailer is ready to roll, but you'll have to be patient and wait until tomorrow to see it! Hence the name "launch trailer"!

We hope that the community will be with us in the continued development of the game; there are certain features that we'd like to include and we plan to do so as soon as we launch. The online multiplayer is almost ready, and the next step is the Sandbox mode which we promised during Kickstarter, where players can free build and (ideally) share their levels that they've created.