Development Updates from Developers

[das_vicky]

Thread for all Updates on the development of the game.

[das_vicky]

30th September
While the 3D Models are being developed and we are looking for animators, on the backend, I have been doing the following

1) Creating some basic classes with the appropriate attributes to be used in the game
2) Collating all the Features that would be in the game
3) Based on the features list, we will be getting the storyline done and all the possible screenies done.

We would be using XNA studio for the 2D and 3D development. This would make this a complete Managed Game (.NET).

The timeline for completing the Storyline and all the rough sketches for all possible screenies is 30th October. This does not mean that my programming would be waiting entirely for this.

I am also preparing a Meeting stucture (something like Fortnightly, Monthly and quaterly) where programmers, Animators, Modellers, Graphics artists and other contributors can meet. Programmers can have their own time of meet and others can decide on their suitable time.

This would ensures that we are in constant touch and are aware of each other's progress.

[das_vicky]

8th October

As I had mentioned last time, we have set a Maximum time frame of End of October for completing the storyline and all rough sketches of all the screens. Stumped(hitterman) is the one who is working on it. He has a bad internet connection and hence he has not been able to update me on that. But even taking into worst scenarios, we are on schedule to complete the detailed storyline(last week Stumped had shared the first level storyline with me).

My estimates about rough sketches of screen is as follows - We would need good amount of review before we finalize the appearance of the screens. Since this is a planned project, we have to stick to a plan as much as possible.

Coming back to work that I am doing.
1) Last week has been more of Project Management work.
2) I have ironed out a structure of the Source versioning that we will be following.. Some of you might have seen that now 3 source trees now appear.

At the very basic level we have 3 Branches of Source Code
1) 22Yards (call the Dev branch)
2) 22yards -Main (call this Main branch)
3) 22Yards - Prod (call this Production branch).

So what the heck is this branching and why I am doing it? You can read more about it in the Developers Blogs thread (that I will be putting on shortly).

The above is very basic and it would be further branched as the development progresses. But the contributors would be workong on the Dev branch and the changes would be be Intergrated to Main branch after the code clears my review. Then the code from Main Branch is intergrated to prod after it qualifies the perf tests and other tests. So the Prod branch would be the one that would be compiled and run on machines.

Note that the Dev branch would be further branched based on feature list (and given to various contributors). In this way different contributors do not mess other sections of code and hence it makes like easier (for me) to intergrate into Main and Prod branches.

Apart from that I also have been reading about XNA 3 and looking in some good examples that we can use later on.

[das_vicky]

4th September

Hello, Its been quite some time, since I have written anything (as far as updates is concerned). Last update came on 8th October.

October has been a festive week in India and most of the contributors being Indian, a slight sluggish progress is inevitable during this season. But the key lies in slow but definitive progress. During these times, its essential to keep the flow going. I managed to achieve that by writing some small but essential modules. Even more importantly I also crafted some Project Management level strategies thats going to help in long run.

Coin Toss module -> Small module, but needed for every match.
Batsman Side-change module -> Cant think without it.

These are extremely easy modules but as I mentioned, during these times, its essential to keep the flow going and what better than working on some easy modules.

Simulatenously I have been working hard on Game state management. Next step is once the Storyline is complete with rough sketches of screens, I should be able to put them in real screens. I have always been an advocate for fluid game screens and my focus here would be that. Since this is also a text based management, we have to focus on this aspect.

One of our key contributor had a terrible loss in his family and hence I had to ask him to take some days off. We are with him in these tough situations. We all pray for the soul to rest in peace. And I am sure he will come back even stronger than ever.

I would re-emphasize on the fact that I have been focussing more and more on effective planning before execution. It might look slow but its like a puzzle and once the pieces start coming together, the bigger picture makes sense. As they say "Look at the bigger picture"

[das_vicky]

Work started on this again!!

[das_vicky]

Hello Everyone, this was an extended weekend here in Hyderabad, India. This means more fun and more work. As everyone knows, the foundation is the most important part of a building. Simillarly for any Application/game, laying the proper foundation would identify the success of failure of the entire process. The foundation of a large game like this means structuring at all stages.
From the very beginning, I am pushing for two core areas of the development process. Making the whole architecture as Plug-N-Play as possible and proper branching so multiple members can effectively work on the code base without interfering each other. I may not be able to share a visualization of the Game architecure at this point, but I can definintely share this huge looking tree for the Code branching.

So if you look at this branch, it might be overwhelming at first, but we need to remember that a specific developer need not care for more than one node. Currently I am working on the Node called 22yards-Release-POC-Dev-B0-Core. So I would be Reverse Integrating the code changes to 22yards-Release-POC-Dev-B0. Taken an example of another developer ‘Joe’ working on Extending Content Pipeline for Skeletal animation. Joe would work on the Node called 22yards-Release-POC-Dev-B0-3D and reverse Integrating to its parent. Now since these two developers working on different files and classes they can work independently and eventually all code come together in 22Yards-Release-POC-Dev-B0 as they continue in their Dev phase.
If you are wondering why we have 5 Nodes undr Release, here’s a brief description
* Stage 1 – Proof of concept: This is the first official release. This would boast of 40% feature complete in 2D and 10% feature complete in 3D
* Stage 2 – Tx (Target 1): This is the second official release. This would be a game with 70% feature complete in 2D and 40% feature complete in 3D.
* Stage 3 – Ty (Target 2): The 3rd release would mean game is 95% feature complete in 2D and 70% feature complete in 3D
* Stage 4 – AlphaX – 4th release with 95% feature complete in 2D and 90% feature complete in 3D
* Stage 5 – BetaX – 5th Release with 95% feature complete in 2D and 95% feature complete in 3D and all Menus, screens done
* Stage 6 – Official V1 – Final release
I would also dare say that I am targetting 31st Dec 2011 as the release target for Stage 1 – POC. I also feel that this first release is the one thats going to take the longest, subsequent releases upto the V1 should be relatively faster.
Now lets take some time to talk about what we are doing.
by das:
1) Finalizing and Coding basic classes like cPlayer (the Core Player class), Team (the Core Team class), Match (core Match Class), MatchPlayEngine( the engine responsible for AI to generate regions where balls to be bowled, where AI would hit, what field would be set) and Tournament (Tournament Structure).
2) Architecting these pieces in such a way that, you can add an XML of custom rules and use that in your game. Add an XML file for custom tournament and use that in game etcc..(basically Plug in the Asset and play in the game)
3) Finalizing and standardizing formats for TEAMs unique Ids, Rules XML format, Tournament XML format.
by pradeep:
4) Creating storyline and designing WorkFlow of scenes.
5) working on look of Main Menu screen
We have also set up an official Monthly meeting between developers (Every Second Sunday) to discuss progress, strategies, roadblocks etc. You can expect to hear more about that next Monday.
–Core Team

[das_vicky]

Hello All, Pradeep has been dilligently working on finalizing the structure for all game screens. Its expected to get handed over by End of this week. After that we are planning to work on the design, looks, animation of each screen. Please note this would not be the implementation phase, but a blueprint for Developers.
In the meanwhile, Das just started working on the Text and Font engine. XNA already has spriteFont to make life easy, but we are encapsulating that and creating an engine will even more easily handle all text and font rendering. We might not realize, but in a game like Cricket, we see text everywhere on screen which keeps updating, so its kinda important. After this is done (which is expected to be around same time as Pradeep hands over the Structure of all Game scenes), Das will straightaway move to work on the Scene Manager. Scene Manager is an engine that will sit on top of all scenes and facilitate transitioning and routing user inputs (based on what screen we are at) of all Game Scenes.
We have also created a draft of all Tasks and features that would comprise in POC release. This will help even more in planning the work to be done for the POC release. If everything goes as per plan, we should be able to sqeeze few more 3D features than we originaaly planned for POC release.
On a workforce perspective, we are in talks with a former First class cricketer to join us a Game Advisor and another planetcricket member to help us in creating Player Stats, Teams. I am also trying to get in touch with some members who were working on this. If we are able to bring them in, it will be a serous boost to our effort. The Core team has also finalized 2nd Sunday of every month for meeting to discuss Progress, challenges and other critical points regarding this effort.

[das_vicky]

Hello Everyone, It looks like we are in the "Positive spiral" phase. Things have started well and picking up faster. From a workforce perspective we have been contacted for Openings like Sound Artist and Statistics Builder. The advantage of being in the Sound team is that, this is not directly related to the game's development progress. So Sound Artist's can start working on the Sounds/Music without being dependent on the Core game's progress. Whereas I am still in process of finalizing the structure in which the Player Stats would be stored. So the Stats Building Team would have to wait till I finalize that piece.

Whole night was consumed in creating a basic Text/Font engine. This engine now takes a Text, color, position, font and displays the text on screen. As progress continues, I will add couple more attributes like Rotation etc.. Post the TextNFontEngine, work continued on Tournament class and finalizing the Tournament structure.

So what the heck is the "Tournament structure"? The idea is that end users, should be able to easily create custom tournaments and use them in game. So this class helps do that. We will provide tools to easily create tournaments or you can use an XML file to create a tournament directly, drop this xml file in the appropriate folder and voila, this new Tournament is now available in the game. This is a simple step towards extending the game and not making it static. Loosely coupled with the Tournament would be its rules. You can decide wether to use 1 single rule throughout the tournament or use different rules for different games. This creates new perspective in the game itself. So for that we have come up with a simple solution (structure of Rules). We will provide tools to create custom rules or modify existing ones or you can simply edit the XML and/or create new XML. Simillar to the Tournament, place this XML in the appropriate folder and voila...use these rules in the game. Another step towards extending the game - We call it Plug-And-Play feature.

Some work is still pending on the Tournament Side and some will continue as other parts of the game progress. But the major pending work at this point is implementing the Core MatchPlayEngine, the same engine that will drive AI in bowling, batting and fielding. Its the most complex part of the game and one of the most critical part too. So many attributes being used, its going to be a hell of a "Spider web".

--Core Team

[das_vicky]

Phase B0, B1,C0 complete, Branching changes and other updates!
Hello All, During this first 15 days of development, We realized, we cannot afford to compromise any quality/feature of this game. Das may not be the Best Developer on Planet, but him being the architect of this game, its he who has to build from scratch each piece and put them together. So we guess, till he builds each piece and till he puts atleast 50% together, it may not be a good idea to involve too many programmers. So Das along with 2 Backup programmers, have to build everything till POC release, with Das taking as much as 90% of the overall development activity(Coding/Architecting) . Only after the POC phase, when the game starts taking its real shape, it would make sense to involve other programmers if they(programmers) are willing to help. So since Das is managing almost alll of 2D, 3D and core coding, we have consolidated 2D, 3D and Core branches into 1 branch. This would change in future as we get more developers.
So whats with this B0,B1, C0. Das have been very confident of the capability of XNA engine and hence he choose this. This game may well be the biggest game (in terms of scale) using XNA. At the same time his intention is not to stop with V1 version of this game. So to ensure we are able to effectively continue on future versions, Das would have to build an engine on top of XNA. This engine is built specifically for Cricket games. So for future cricket games, we dont have to change the programming interface, but the implementation ( a very simple OO methodological approach). So this development of POC combined with the Engine Development is further broken into 15 + 3 phases (15 Core Planning/Development phases and 3 Testing phases)
B0-B5 (Basic 0-5)
C0-C5 (Core 0-5)
T0-T5 (Target 0-5)
So once b4,c4, T4 is over it would mean POC Development phase is over. And once B5, C5, T5 is over, it means POC is ready for release. So this post's title simply means B0, B1, C0 phase for the Game Development is complete. Some of these phases can be very short and some may be longer and some are done parallely. Which means at this point POC release on 31st Dec looks 99.99% possible (which already has 45 days of Buffer period).
Pradeep on the other side is working and on verge of completing the Storyboard. Once that is done along with final blueprints for each screen, it would mean majority of B2, B3, B4 gettting over. So thankfully due to this extravagant planning, there is lot more predictability.
--Core Team

[das_vicky]

Official Meeting–10th April

Hello All, our quest to continue development and continue updating you continues. To add to the effort the Core team had decided a compulsory meeting every month and we had locked down on 2nd Sunday every month. Of course we are flexible and if any member is not present on 2nd Sunday, we can postpone accordingly.

The prime agenda of every meeting is

* The Project Architect conveys any new developments in the overall project. Like inclusion of new features.

* Project related discussions, that consists of (but not limited to) Progress, Roadblocks, setting internal targets for development etc…

* Updates on Workforce.

Yesterday we had our first meeting. Started at 11:30 am IST and lasted for about an hour…pretty long huh!! There were some Project updates which I conveyed to other members. I was also able to finally divide each Dev/Artist task into the various stages (B0-B4, C0-C4, T0-T4). This means three things, we know what we have to do in each task, the relevant person can own the task completely and work independently and estimate how long each task will take. This would also mean we can predict the release dates and bring sanity to the overall development process.

I just undertook Task C1 (Implementing a Scene Manager). Pradeep took task B2, B3 and is expecting the final version of those tasks by 8th May. So by the next meeting (8th May) we are expecting to complete C1, C2, B2, B3. This means by start of 2nd Week of May, we would be left with B4, C3, C4, T1, T2, T3, T4 tasks. Please note this includes the leave I am taking from 17th – 24th April and 4th – 9th May. So this leave is definitely not going to affect the initial decided date of POC showdown.

Some may think that these information is useless, but the fact remains that these foundation stones are the most important to the success of this project. Towards the end of this first cycle of POC showdown, we promise to bring some 2D eye candy. Remember POC means 40% 2D feature complete and 10% 3D feature complete.

–Core Team