Log #4: Sep/4/2024

Becoming a project manager. A few attempts at Debugging. Narrative Analysis. Makeup Entry for Tuesday and entry for Wednsday.

Yesterday was interesting. First, me and the rest of my team found out that our project manager would not be returning. We did not learn why, but now someone has to take the management role. We decided that I would take the role of both designer and project manager, and I'm just starting to learn why that's a big load.

Our team talked about some of the details of the game, and I spent time trying to fix that infamous bug.

After working on the game, I spent some time at home analyzing the short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" for our narrative learning, which was pretty enjoyable. I had already read this story a year or two ago, and I enjoyed reading it again. At first, I did not find much resemblance to a familiar story structure, but then I remembered the novel Stargirl, which the short story shared some in common with. I began to look at it from a "strange visitor" sort of perspective.

Today, we did more work on learning about narratives. After a short writing warm-up based on a vague picture, we began talking about this story: For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. I found it very interseting how much can be implied by that short story.

Then we spent time analysing the narrative of the game Breakout, an Atari game where you stop a ball from falling by knocking it upward with a paddle, grandually destorying part of a "roof" above. I found the buildup in tension that Breakout made as the ball's speed increased to be very interesting. We also spent some time writing about "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings".

Also today, we discussed a new project for designers: setting up design documentation in order to practice. At first I was intimidated because it was starting to seem like I had a lot to do, but I have time to work on it, so I think I will be alright.

After that meeting, I filled out some more details about the mechanics of our game and had an interesting realization: The checklist a designer has is very different than that of the project manager. I needed to not only list all of the game's mechanics so everyone was clear on what you could do in-game, but I also needed to list the corresponding tasks for the rest of my team that making those mechanics create.

To wrap up today, I did a tiny bit more work on trying to fix the coding tutorial game's bug, but alas, the solution has alluded me.

One day that bug will run in fear,

-Luke Knotts