Overworking and Context

So. A big thing this week was getting our prototypes done and ready for QA Testing. We planned for a bit of time next sprint to work on the prototypes as well, but I made it my mission to finish my prototype this sprint, on top of doing research about our competitors. That was not a good idea. I soon found myself swamped, with way too much to do. The prototype was taking longer than I anticipated, and work from other classes was also pressing in. Finally, I decided it was OK to reject some tasks, and pushed the research back to next sprint in order to focus on the prototype. You will not believe how much better I felt after doing that. I had so much more energy. I was able to mostly finish the prototype, with some extra additions for next sprint, and even got a bit of research done. Moral of the story: Don't overwork yourself.

Now for a bit of actual design talk: One of my professors imparted to me the importance of context. One of our game ideas has a focus on grenades, but there wasn't really a reason for the grenades. My professor said that for the game to go forward, we would need the grenades (and the rest of the game) to make contextual sense. SO I got to thinking about why a highly mobile human would have a grenade launcher inside of a giant alien, and this is what I came up with: The player is a highly skilled spy who recently stole a prototype grenade launcher from an enemy group. Fleeing through an unknown part of space, his ship got eaten by a giant alien. Stranded in this strange place, the player must piece together enough of a ship to escape the alien and bring the prototype back to their side before it can be used against them. The spy part contextualizes the high mobility of the player, and the theft gives a reason for the grenade launcher to be there. Everything came together neatly, and really just made sense. It was a beautiful thing to behold.