Blog Hours

This page contains my dev-blog information, where I break down my weekly hours, overall highlighting what I accomplished each week.

Continue reading to see how my hours are broken down.

Pre-Beta 2 Sprint (Nov. 15th - Nov. 28th, 2021)

Week 1: 12 Total Work Hours

*Nov. 15th - Monday: 1.75 Hours total, From 12:45pm - 1:30pm ET I posted about Project Tower on LinkedIn and Twitter.
From 5:30pm - 6:00pm ET I researched more about SEO on LinkedIn.
From 7:00pm - 7:30pm ET I attended the weekly Narrative Design meeting for Project Tower and gave feedback on writing pieces by Crystal.

*Nov. 16th - Tuesday: N/A

*Nov. 17th - Wednesday: 1.25 hours total, For 1.25 hours from 9:30pm - 10:45pm ET I attended Professor Austin Yarger's playtesting session for Project Bloom and Project Tower.

*Nov. 18th - Thursday: 2 hours total, From 7:00pm - 9:00pm ET I attended the weekly WolverineSoft meeting.

*Nov. 19th - Friday: 0.5 Hours total, From 4:15-4:30pm ET I installed the Twine engine and looked up stuff about it. I likely will make a game with this when I have more free time.
From 6:30pm - 6:45pm ET I invited 999 people (wouldn't let me do 1k exact, that's max. amount one can invite people for events on LinkedIn every week) to the UM + EMU Student Virtual Games Showcase event on December 10th, 2021.

*Nov. 20th - Saturday: N/A

*Nov. 21st - Sunday: 6.5 Hours total, For 1 hour from 11:00am - 12:00pm ET I attended the WolverineSoft Studio weekly meeting.
For 5 hours from 12:00pm - 5:00pm ET I downloaded all the WolverineSoft Studio games from the itch page and played them to get familiar with the gameplay and level layouts for each game. This was to prep for recording video clips of WolverineSoft Studio's games. Also had fun trying out some of our older projects that I hadn't played yet!

For 30 minutes from 7:30pm - 8:00pm ET I researched a bit about indie game development.

Week 2: 18.50 Total Work Hours

*Nov. 22nd - Monday: N/A

*Nov. 23rd - Tuesday: N/A

*Nov. 24th - Wednesday: N/A

*Nov. 25th - Thursday: 1.25 Hours total, From 10:15pm - 11:30pm ET I began the arduous process of organizing my game-dev files. Like (almost or entirely) ALL of my files I've ever made for game-dev projects.

*Nov. 26th - Friday: 6.5 Hours total, For 6.5 hours from 9:00am - 5:30pm ET (with 2 hours of break time) I organized my game-dev files and website in a way so I can easily add new files in the future should I ever need to. This was a very tedious process.

*Nov. 27th - Saturday: 2.50 Hours total, For 2.25 hours from 1:45am - 4:00am ET I researched ShareX software settings for optimal recording conditions and recorded 7 30-second Infectant video clips that if combined would be a complete playthrough of the game.
From 10:45am - 11:00am ET I invited 255 more people to the UM + EMU December 10th Student Virtual Games Showcase and made sure to be somewhat active on LinkedIn to boost how many people see future posts.

*Nov. 28th - Sunday: 8.25 Hours total, For 1 hour from 11:00am - 12:00pm ET I attended the weekly WolverineSoft Studio meeting.
For 30 minutes from 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET I met with WolverineSoft Studio Director Amber Renton, WolverineSoft Studio Project Bloom Lead George Castle, and Project Bloom Design Lead Brandon Schulz. We discussed the Sponsorship Strategy for WolverineSoft Studio to acquire more sponsors and external events/competitions to promote as external opportunities for WolverineSoft members. I gained permission to network as an ambassador for WolverineSoft Studio for the sponsors that I at least know/am comfortable asking.

For 4.75 hours from 1:00pm - 6:15pm ET (with a 30 minute break) I created around 25 useable 30-second video clips for the WolverineSoft Studio games Dreamwillow, io, Bloom Tome of Power, Circuitry, a couple for Caduceus, and one for Rideshare Rampage. I plan to create at minimum 50+ total video clips this semester for all of WolverineSoft Studio's games to be used as social media content as well as for trailer material. If able I endeavor to create other types of videos of gameplay beyond those, such as complete playthrough videos for our games.
Infectant Video Example:
Dreamwillow Video Example:
io Video Example:
Bloom - Tome of Power Video Example:
Circuitry Video Example:
Caduceus Video Example:
Rideshare Rampage Video Example:

From 9:00pm - 11pm ET I worked on organizing my dev-blog journal for Pre-Beta 2.

*

PRE-BETA 2 RECAP:

TOTAL NUMBER OF HOURS FOR THE PAST 2 WEEKS:

*Target Number of Hours: 30 Hours (for 5 Academic Credits 15 Hours Per Week, 15 Hours * 2 Weeks = 30 Hours)

*Hours Achieved During this Sprint: 30.50 Hours (12 from Week 1 + 18.50 from Week 2 = 30.50 Hours)

*I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and used much of the break to catch up on homework for other classes, so this sprint I focused less on pushing social media posts and more time on long-term value material for WolverineSoft Studio (such as the 30+ video clips of gameplay that can be used for game trailers or social media content, the Sponsorship strategy doc, etc.). For the Pre-Gold sprints I plan to focus much more heavily on the social media post side.

IMAGE AND VIDEO EVIDENCE

Since I worked on gameplay videos I have video evidence! Also images per the usual dev blog entry of course.

BUGS AND PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED:

*Problem: Navigating the nuances of WolverineSoft Studio authority when it comes to externally representing our brand.

*Problem: ShareX video recording settings not working OR not working at a high enough quality to my liking.

*Problem: My computer can't handle recording at a high-ish quality the games Caduceus and Rideshare Rampage without lag.

*Problem: Being behind in classes (taking 20 credits and doing 2 part time jobs to stay financially afloat) and not marketing externally much due to Thanksgiving Break, also for less work time with celebrating Thanksgiving with my family.

TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES USED:

*I had a direct meeting with Amber, George, and Brandon to ensure I'm not stepping out of bounds with my marketing/networking strategies.

*I looked up lots of videos, and eventually realized I can't have other softwares that use the mic open for optimal ShareX conditions.

*I decided to use my time on other tasks as I think up a solution for recording these more advanced games.

*I just did a lot of homework, drank a lot of hot tea, listened to lots of complex music, and just willed my way to work hard. A really motivating thing when in these tough times is remembering that these short and momentary troubles are far outweighed by the long-term. It's only 2-3 more weeks of grind!

SUCCESSFUL TASKS:

*Establishing starting actionable steps for sponsorship strategy.

*Recordings of video gameplay clips.

*Inviting lots of people on LinkedIn to our game showcasing on December 10th.

UNSUCCESSFUL TIME INVESTMENTS:

*Organizing dev-blog website as a whole. While much better than it looked last Sprint still has so much more to go to make my work marketable.

*Organizing game files. I spent lots of time re-organizing how to access those on my site and over-complicating the process.

*This week I strongly felt that my time was used wisely. I learned a lot about how to record video gameplay (now a career as a Twitch YouTuber is an open class in the RPG of my life lol).

STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING IN FUTURE SPRINTS:

*Distributing time more evenly throughout the week (I'm getting better at this I've noticed.)

*Using less time on organizing my dev-blog website (I can do that during Christmas/Winter break I suppose)

*Using more time to research marketing strategies/principles (Succeeded in this Sprint yet should do even more)

*Continuing to format this website (this is still needed, yet I need to spend less time on this but still make it a priority)

*Still on learning more about Documentation styles, glad to see my work get featured again in this Sprint, definitely a confidence booster

*Spend LOTS of my sprint time on action! (Marketing posts/networking attempts/strategizing/etc., AKA finishing this semester with a bang!)