Team Orientation

At the start of this lab, you should get together in your assigned groups. For most of you, this will be your first official meeting with your group. When you meet with your group, check to make sure that everyone is there. If anyone is missing, let us know immediately. If someone is missing group meetings this early, it does not bode well for the future. If a team member must be replaced, we need to know early while we can still add new people to the class.

Team Workflow

The purpose of today’s discussion is the Team Workflow document. At the very beginning of class, the TAs will talk to you all about group dynamics and what is expected of you this semester. They will go over the purpose of the team workflow. They will also talk about what to do if you think you need to revise your workflow document.

We do not expect you to finish the team workflow in class time. Instead you will finish it by this weekend. But should spend class time thinking about team roles. Everyone should have some sort of role. However, there are four roles that are very important:

Project Lead

This person is in charge of keeping track of and clearly communicating tasks to team members, assigning tasks as necessary, facilitating communication between team members, handling team conflicts, and keeping the team on schedule. They are also responsible for gathering together the information for the bi-weekly reports (though everyone is expected to contribute). This should be someone who can get along with everyone on the team.

Software Lead

This person is in charge of the architecture decisions on the project. They lead the design of the architecture specification and have final say on all class interfaces. They also monitor programmers’ progress (assigning tasks as needed), facilitate communication between programmers and designers, and ensure good programming practices are being followed (such as code reviews). This should not be the same person as the Project Leader; rather, they should work closely with the Project Lead with task assignments and team communication.

Design Lead

This person sets the visual aesthetic of the game. They have final say on the artistic style of the game, and the other designers are expected to adjust to this style. They also monitor designers’ progress (assigning tasks as needed), facilitate communication between programmers and designers, and ensure good design practices are being followed (such as file naming conventions). This should not be the same person as the Project Leader; rather, they should work closely with the Project Lead with task assignments and team communication.

User Research Lead

This person is in charge of gathering and analyzing feedback from playtesters. Playtesting is a major focus in 4152/5152, more-so than it is in the introductory course. It is also more of a challenge since your players are not guaranteed to have the right hardware to play the game. As a result, this role is responsible for getting the game into the hands of players. They are also responsible for recording and analyzing the results of these playtesting sessions.

Generative AI Policy

We do allow generative AI in this course, provided that the data sets are clean. However, many groups find that generative AI can be more of a burden than a help. In the case of code, it can make your code harder to integrate with the rest of your team. In the case of art, it can create a visual mismatch between still assets and more dynamic, animated assets. Your team should come to an agreement on what they feel are acceptable uses of generative AI for this semester.

Submission

There is no submission unique to this ENGRC lab. Instead, you will submit your your Team Workflow document the end of the week. We will also grade this submission, though the grade will be pass/fail for the first draft. This document will be part of your documentation grade.