Mana Punch: Picking Priorities.

For us, the core mechanics for our intended experience are in, there just not as polished as we would like them. Our goal in previous weeks has been function over flair, and now we have to turn that on its head somewhat. With everything we wanted in: the combo enders, spell effects, basic combat, cutscenes, and AI patterns, we're now thinking along the lines of what can make those more noticeable to the player. So that's the question any new PBI's or features have to answer when we put them up for debate if they can enhance the core experience without adding too much work or messing something up on the back end.

However, that is only the first question we ask, as the team wants to get plenty of player feedback and other whistles in. So after that initial question, someone has to ask, "well do we have time for it?" This previous week is a great example of that as we may have overestimated how much we could get done in a week, given where we all are mentally. Seeing what's been logged and pushed, the teams' going at a much slower pace than usual, or at the very least no communicating as well as they should be. Considering that, as we go into future weeks, we will have to start wondering how capable we are in getting work done and letting that be are degerminators for whether or not we include it into the sprint.

We also have to start wondering about the final presentation and demo for the game, ensuring that it is as presentable as possible, so the panel gets the best intention of our game. So not only is there the questions of, "does this make present features more noticeable,” "do we have the energy to do all of this," and "does this help make our case for the second semester."

Bottom line is there are many questions to be asking at the moment, with only a week and a half left to do anything about them. In my head, we may want to shift to asking those last two for this previous sprint in half. There is some overlap with that first and third question that we won't lose too much in the transition, but something is bound to fall off. However, the trade-off is that we'll have a much easier workload for that last week, so even though we are not getting in as much work as previous weeks, at the very least, it's good to work. Which I think should be our focus this last week, and hopefully, I can sway the team into thinking that comes Sunday planning.