A day late but worth the wait! In this high signal-to-noise roundtable episode, each member of the club picks a topic that they are particularly passionate about:
Stephen shares his wisdom and guidance about playtesting your work early and often, Martha helps you get your act together in a practical discussion about project management, and Mark tries to explain the obligation he feels as an artist, but picks a weird hill to die on as he wrongly insists that Portal 2 isn't really about anything.
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Ice Cold Games
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Demoing and Playtesting
0:03:27
Stephen McGregor
Production
Project Management
0:33:26
Martha Megarry
Production
Tools
trello
Agile Development - Agile Software Development, Wikipedia
Waterfall Development - Wikipedia
Kanban Development - Wikipedia
The Blue Yarn - 99% Invisible - The Blue Yarn, 99% Invisible
NUMMI (2015) - NUMMI, This American Life
David Megarry's Three Questions all project managers should ask:
“Do you have all the resources you need?"
"Do you have any roadblocks or impediments?"
“A project manager (PM) is more of a problem solver than anything else. If you don’t have the resources, the PM finds them. If there are roadblocks, the PM helps to find a way to get around them. If not on schedule, the PM alters it or adds more resources or changes scope. Above all, the PM communicates with management as to the state of the project so they can make proper decisions and not be blindsided or surprised.” -David Megarry
Messages and Meanings
0:52:56
Mark LaCroix
Game Design
Summerland - Michael Chabon, Novel
A Closer Look at How Three Assassin's Creed Games Have Handled Slavery - Kotaku
For Honor's accidental alt-right connection - Polygon