Something to discuss this week is
the intimate look into small-team dynamics that Team Fury must face. No student team could ever be contrived to
have the hundreds of souls that work on typical AAA games; heck, breakthrough
games have been made on the skills of a single coder! But in terms of big and small, there are
vastly different ways that those team sizes effect game creation.
Fury
Void is being worked on, by all accounts, what could be considered a small
team. A 4 man team of part-time game
creators leads to many interesting group outcomes; some are good, others could
be better. So, let’s start with areas of
improvement.
In the past semester, getting Fury Void worked on (in terms of
man-hours) has been a trying affair.
Every person is resigned to work 8 hours a week, with those hours being
more or (likely) less during any given week.
However, despite being such a small group, it is my feeling that more
quality hours of work have been put into the game past that of other project
teams.
That leads me to address the cost
of laziness. I make no exception for
myself, and I leave none to the rest of the Fury
Void team. Having a lax day happens;
there’s no getting around it. But, when
such an easy-going day arises, harsh impacts are felt on Fury Void’s development.
Even if it isn’t a fact of
lethargy, being such a small team, any sickness, travel, or unforeseen
situation is murderous to the release schedule.
Entire weeks of work are pushed back in the release window due to events
coming-up that ruin work-times. Though
some accommodations and rescheduling is done, it can’t keep up with unforeseen
circumstances. Not even close.
Speaking of schedules, accurate
time estimates are the ‘Holy Grails’ of game development. Fury
Void is hampered often enough by either a bug or feature that defies the
skills of the 3 programmers on the team (and every forum post on the net). These issues frequently lead to complete a
reimagining of what is to come for Team Fury to develop.
The last ‘negative’ comes more from
the structure of the academic course, but the consequences are extreme for the
team itself. This namely deals with the
ability to ‘hire’ and ‘fire’ assets for the team. Therefore, if additional work is needed to be
brought in, the course makes it difficult to recruit new developers. If a person needs to be let go, either from
their skills not being needed any longer or that they have become a detriment
to the team, they must remain on. This,
more than anything else, has been the largest hamper on both Team Fury and
groups that I’ve worked in previously.
But now, some good things of having
a small team! With only a few
individuals, getting meeting and work times together is a breeze. Only 4 schedules are needed to be worked around;
in contrast to 10- or 12-person teams that rarely see a true stability to their
schedule.
With the regard to being easily
brought together to meet, it is very easy to get to know a small team. As a project lead, I’ve come to know the
strengths, weaknesses, mannerisms, and work-ethics Team Fury provides; every
person working on Fury Void knows
what everyone else is able/looking to do.
Furthermore, if someone has an idea
to add to Fury Void’s development
process, pitching that idea to 3 others at one time versus a half-dozen others
at various meetings is a whole lot easier.
This fact engenders a lot more investment on the part of the team into
the project. Every feature worked on has
been developed, in part, by every person in the group.
Finally, having such a short-coming
of personnel for Fury Void has helped
reign-in scope very early. Fury Void was originally pitched with a
‘doable limit’ in mind, but only 4 people working on it was never
considered. Therefore, with our numbers
as justification, scope has always been taken into account before anything is
carried out in Team Fury. That has and
will serve Team Fury very well throughout the coming months.
Small teams have some nasty,
terrible qualities, but they also have some great advantages to larger
groups. In this experiment of numbers
going against time, Fury Void will
likely be better because of having such a low unit cap. Team Fury is full of surprises, where I’m
sure to learn a lot in how to make games.
