Codex Worlds

Codex Worlds is an indie company based in Austin who develops original, artistic games that appeal to both casual and core gamers.

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GDC Update

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The Game Developers Conference is in full swing in chilly San Francisco. Infinium Strike is close to completion and we want attendees to play our challenging Deep Space Arcade Mode. Come by our booth at GDC Play PL500 in North Hall.  In addition, we are debuting Battlecursed, a rogue-like dungeon crawler where a player explores the mysteries of the newly revived lich lord, Xelo Van.  We have a pre-alpha playable you can evaluate.

Check out the latest at www.battlecursed.com.  We were recently approved on Steam Greenlight in less than 2 weeks. Thanks for the early support!

If you are at the show come on by and try out both titles!

Codex Team

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Codex Worlds Announces

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Codex Worlds is preparing to go to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in mid-March. In addition to showing off the Infinium Strike Deep Space Arcade mode at the show, we are announcing our next title: Battlecursed. Our team has been working hard for almost a year to bring a fully playable pre-alpha demo to the show for all to see. Below, we have posted the press release. Please stop by Booth PL500 if you are attending the show. We'll post updates from here!

Codex Team

 Reprint: Press Release

Rogue-Like Action RPG Battlecursed Coming to PC in Q4 2016 First Hands-on Demo at GDC  

AUSTIN, Texas – March 1, 2016 – Battlecursed, a rogue-like action RPG in which a single-player directs a four-hero party in real-time, first-person battles, will come to PC in Q4 2016. Swift thinking and calculated strategies are key as players manage their custom hero group's development as they venture deep into an ever-changing underground world.  GDC 2016 attendees will be the first to brave Battlecursed's procedurally-generated 3-D labyrinths when it makes its public debut in booth PL 500. Instead of relying on one character with numerous abilities, Battlecursed emphasizes party tactics, such as combining specific characters’ weapons or spells with devastating results. For example, combine the Grave Knight’s Frost Spell with the ranger’s Multi-Shot to create triple Frost Arrow projectiles. Initial hero classes include Huntress, Cleric, Grave Knight and Necromancer. The shrewd Huntress stealthily takes down opponents using her agility to dodge attacks and dexterity to strike with fatal precision. The Necromancer taps into undead sorcery, binding all manner of evil creatures to carry out the party’s bidding. The Grave Knight plows through enemies with his superior strength and surprises many with his deadly frost spells. The Cleric, empowered with divine magic, will serve as the primary healer and protector of the party.  Players navigate the twisting dungeons of the evil Arch-Lich, Lord Xelo Van. Along the way, they'll unravel the mystery of the undead sorcerer's secret power and collect Soul Shards to resurrect powerful, legendary heroes. Codex Worlds is led by Dexter Chow, a former executive producer at Ubisoft, as well as other developers who worked on Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; Torment: Tides of Numenera; and Dragon’s Lair.  “We love action RPGs, but we want to play in first person with a party and add a rogue style of gameplay. Battlecursed will give fans of dungeon crawlers, ARPGs and rogue-like games something to look forward to,” said Dexter Chow, creative director of Codex Worlds.  Codex Worlds is currently running a Steam Greenlight campaign for Battlecursed.   To learn more about Battlecursed, visit www.battlecursed.com  

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After PAX South

Wow, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity for the entire Codex Worlds team!  First, we would like to say “THANK YOU!” to everyone who organized, volunteered, and attended PAX South in San Antonio this past weekend.  

Our visionary Creative Director, Dexter Chow, and brilliant Concept Artist, Chris Rogers, did a phenomenal job manning the Infinium Strike booth throughout the weekend.  We would also like to extend a special thanks to our friends and partners at Stride PR for their outstanding ability to get Infinium Strike seen and heard in a sea of competition.

Who am I?  My name is Steven.  You will be hearing a lot from me in the coming months.  I am your connection to the rest of the Codex Worlds team.  I love to hear from all of our followers, players, and fans, so please engage with us on our social media pages, community forums, Steam discussion boards, or my personal email listed at the bottom of this post!

Everyone has been hard at work over the past several weeks polishing gameplay, implementing player feedback, and preparing Infinium Strike for launch.  If you haven’t seen the new Pre-Launch Trailer yet, check it out on YouTube.  

Curious about some of the new tweaks and additions we have made?  Here’s the shortlist:

Added new gameplay settings

Enable permanent health bars

Advanced camera - does not snap to turret bank when changing quadrants

Enable permanent sector boundary lines

Tactical map now shows an icon for 25 seconds when a turret is evaporated

Tactical map now has a quadrant danger indicator

Quadrant buttons at the upper right hand corner of the UI now display color coded warning indicators progressing from yellow to orange to red based on the amount of damage taken

Complete overhaul, tweaks, and bug fixes for controllers

We have been overwhelmed lately by the amount of positive feedback Infinium Strike has received after PAX South in the press and on social media.  Here are some of our favorites:

“This may be the key to invigorating the Tower Defense genre…” ~ Escapist Magazine

“If blowing up the Wrog is wrong, I don’t want to be right…” ~ Without the Sarcasm

“Infinium Strike, however, is gorgeous, intense, and robust. It plays more like an arcade space shooter than a tower defense game, and requires some quick thinking and planning to master.” ~ MMOHuts

 As always, the entire team at Codex Worlds thanks you for your continued support in our quest to deliver you the most exciting gameplay experience possible!  Terran Space Force Command, over and out.

Steven Pattison [email protected] http://community.codexworlds.com/

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Open Beta Ends 12/31/2015

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The Infinium Strike Open Beta ends with the year. If you are interested in participating in Open Beta, you can still download the build on Windows Steam. We have received a lot of good feedback that we will be implementing over the next couple of months. Here is a partial list of changes, some of which have already been implemented:

Adjusted the game balance in 5 different missions including Commander 8, 10, and Deep Space.

Added a new controller map to use buttons (instead of bumpers) to select the major weapons systems. 

Tweaked the introduction screens to better inform the player of the tactical map and the controller schemes.

Fixed several bugs, including the Star Ace not shooting properly.

Added more info on the tactical map about events, including evaporated turrets!

Much more!

Thanks from the Codex Team for all your support for our unique tactical starship defense game!

[codexworlds-blog]

Open Beta Now Available

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The free Open Beta is available now on Steam! Simply download the Infinium Strike demo off of the Infinium Strike Steam page, and you will receive the Open Beta. It includes basic and advanced interactive tutorials as well as the first 4 missions of the game! Storytelling, arcade mode, and multiple difficulty levels have been left out of the Beta. Feedback is welcome on our Infinium Strike Forums. 

The Full Access Beta is also available on the Infinium Strike Store. For $25, get the whole game beta via Steam, and it will convert to a full product upon release.  

The Free Bubba DLC Promotion (estimated retail: $4.99, a limited time offer) is in full swing. Simply register your Steam email address on www.codexworlds.com, and we will send you the first DLC free via Steam. 

On the product front, we continue to update the game with the great feedback we received from our closed beta from Kickstarter. 

Thanks again for all the support. 

Codex Team

[codexworlds-blog]

Infinium Strike Release Update

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At Codex Worlds, we have remained committed to the beta process and taking feedback on everything from game play and art comments to interface comments. As we prepared to launch in Q4, we looked at our feedback, looked at our goals, and finally, looked at the status of our product. After much debate, we have decided the benefits to the product are worth pushing the release date to Q1 of 2016. With the extra few months, here are some of the improvements you will see in the game:

Increased varitety of music and sound effects.

Many design adjustments in the level game play based on beta tester feedback.

Simultaneous release on multiple platforms.

Localization to be included at release.

Steam Big Picture Support as well as additional controller maps.

Many of you have received Steam codes through Kickstarter, beta participation, or as part of our marketing of the game. These codes will continue to receive our latest updates and will turn into full products when we release. Of course, we are still taking any feedback on the game in our forums at http://community.codexworlds.com/.  

We thank you for your patience, and we promise to put the time to good use!

Codex Team

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Beta Update

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We are in our final week on Kickstarter, and we are really close. I want to share some insightful feedback we have gotten from our closed beta test.

The early missions were too long, and with the simulation tutorials, players want to jump into the action. So we opened up the arcade mode to anyone who wants to try it from the beginning. It gets action packed within a few minutes.  

Although tower defense is the main thrust of the game, the experience of playing with 4 lanes and using real-time tactics with other weapons, such as ships and SuperTech, has led us to the conclusion that calling this a "Futuristic Tower Defense" game may not be giving the consumer the whole picture. It is a strategy/action game in which you are defending a battlecarrier. As the weapons officer, you have the opportunity to turn the tide of the Wrog War. We've reworked our positioning on the title to better describe the experience of the game, as beta testers requested.  

We are beefing up the graphics in a few areas to improve the experience on 4K monitors. We are also looking at tweaking the lighting and effects to make the visibility of the ships even better across a variety of combat situations.  

The later missions have been made more challenging in the campaign.  

Of course, several bugs and editorial on interface have also been implemented from feedback. Some mission rewards were corrected as well as a bug preventing mission 6 from being completed.

So the game is on track to be released in October! Our latest beta was updated today on Steam. We needed to restart the player profiles, but going forward, save games and achievements should be saved properly. Our goal is to carry over the save game and stats when we go to ship 1.0.

We achieved one of our major goals for Kickstarter, and that was to get consumer feedback on our game. It would be great to add a successful Kickstarter as well.

  Codex Team

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Project Update

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The closed beta test has been very helpful in getting feedback to our team. It's not too late to join! Check out our Kickstarter for more info. At $25 or higher, you automatically get invited to join, and you get to play the full beta! Check it out.

We have successfully deployed to both Mac and Linux. We're excited to offer these in addition to Windows.

Codex Worlds' Creative Director Dexter Chow has completed a play through of the game's Deep Space arcade mode. If you want to see the beta and some crazy tower defense arcade-style action, check it out!

Also, check out the latest entry in the Game Life Coach series.

http://bit.ly/1JemdAB

We are getting close to finishing our Kickstarter, but it is not too late to spread the word!

Codex Team

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Kickstarter in Full Swing

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We are coming up to the halfway mark in our Kickstarter. The response has been very positive on the game and the demo! Our supporters have given us some great comments and feedback. With the closed beta starting next week, we expect more input and even feedback on the mission design and suggestions.

Let your friends know of this unique tower defense/arcade-style 3D space game.

There have been several questions about the Pilot Training Pledge Tier. Here is what we posted in our Kickstarter Update:

With 6 current or former game development teachers and 6 game development program alumni on the Codex Team, we are passionate about game dev education.

1. What kind of information is provided?

We take documentation seriously, including design, art, and programming specifications. These documents will be made available and will give actual insights into a game development pipeline as well as some tips and tricks.

2. How much can I get involved?

Although not required, we offer opportunities to work on in-game assets and design. Of course, contributions will be credited in game and available for personal portfolios.

3. How much time is involved?

Again, all contributions are voluntary, so it can be zero to 8 hours. We anticipate content development will continue through the end of 2015.

4. What kind of communication is involved?

For those who want to get really involved, a subject matter expert will be your partner in developing the content, whether it be graphics, programming, or design.

5. What is required?

For art, we do both 2D and 3D, so the minimum would be a program -- for example, Photoshop. We use Unity and C# for our dev environment. All of our design tools are custom, and mission design is largely dependent on the ability to be creative and design levels that are fun!

Come join our Kickstarter at the $25 pledge level or higher to get into the closed beta right away.

Dex

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Kickstarter in Full Swing

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We are coming up to the halfway mark in our Kickstarter. The response has been very positive on the game and the demo! Our supporters have given us some great comments and feedback. With the closed beta starting next week, we expect more input and even feedback on the mission design and suggestions.

Let your friends know of this unique tower defense/arcade-style 3D space game.

There have been several questions about the Pilot Training Pledge Tier. Here is what we posted in our Kickstarter Update:

With 6 current or former game development teachers and 6 game development program alumni on the Codex Team, we are passionate about game dev education.

1. What kind of information is provided?

We take documentation seriously, including design, art, and programming specifications. These documents will be made available and will give actual insights into a game development pipeline as well as some tips and tricks.

2. How much can I get involved?

Although not required, we offer opportunities to work on in-game assets and design. Of course, contributions will be credited in game and available for personal portfolios.

3. How much time is involved?

Again, all contributions are voluntary, so it can be zero to 8 hours. We anticipate content development will continue through the end of 2015.

4. What kind of communication is involved?

For those who want to get really involved, a subject matter expert will be your partner in developing the content, whether it be graphics, programming, or design.

5. What is required?

For art, we do both 2D and 3D, so the minimum would be a program -- for example, Photoshop. We use Unity and C# for our dev environment. All of our design tools are custom, and mission design is largely dependent on the ability to be creative and design levels that are fun!

Come join our Kickstarter at the $25 pledge level or higher to get into the closed beta right away.

Dex

[codexworlds-blog]

Demo 2.0 Now Available

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Thanks for the initial pledges to our Kickstarter. We still have some work to do here. Tell your friends!

We have responded to our first wave of feedback on the product.

Several people noted the demo was too short and easy. We added a challenging Advanced Level to the initial demo. In addition, the tutorial covers more features.

We have made changes to our interface to more clearly show the options to place turrets.

We greatly improved the camera to lead the player to the turret banks as well as fixed a few bugs.

We enabled Quick Turret Mode, which allows fast placement of turrets, even if a player is roaming around space watching combat!

You can now download the new version of the demo through Steam or the linked image below.

We are still tightening up beta for our first round of testing. We estimate this will be between 1 and 2 weeks from now. So, tell your friends to support our project at $25 or higher to get access to our beta, and help us make this game great!

[codexworlds-blog]

Game Dev Update: Alpha!

Codex Worlds has hit a major milestone with our alpha playable complete. What does this mean? Like many definitions in the game biz, the term "alpha" may mean different things to different people. In addition, over time, this term has generally changed as the needs of the industry have changed. 

In the early '90s, when I was working on DOS and monochrome Mac products, alpha was really an early state of development. Games were broken, art was often placeholders, and lots of machines had compatibility problems. It was the worst of times. Sometimes, consumers had to install custom graphics drivers and even memory profiles just for one game. 

Over the years, alpha has become much more of a complete game with more quality. Here is a snapshot from our milestone list:

 So why has the game industry moved to a much more complete and strict definition for builds? Here is my guess:

As teams get bigger, more money is spent on development. More money means more risk. More risk means more management. Management always wants more accurate data.

Publishers, especially platform publishers, really drive the standards we all adopt -- even indies. Indies can create their own definitions all they want, and if they self publish, great; they can call their latest build the Unicorn build -- if the team is OK with it, then who cares? However, Sony cares, Microsoft cares, and publishers care!

The press adopts the industry language so they can communicate with their audience and also remain true to the teams about whom they are reporting. If an editor has to install a custom driver to run the game ... I would hate to hear the wrath from that editor!

At the end of the day, I believe all development teams want to ship and be proud of their title. It is common sense to try to clearly communicate to your team what the goals are. Upping those standards mean team members need to up their game to stay on the dev team.

So, Hitting Alpha for Infinium Strike is huge for us. We've shot high for our development team, but that makes us that much more satisfied when we hit it. Team, let's all take a break, and pat ourselves on the back ... hey, what is this file?... video driver update.exe. I have have to get back to work!

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Codex Worlds 2015 Update

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Codex Worlds completed its first full year. Here are some fun facts about what we did in 2014:

Doubled our team size from 15 to 30 team members

Updated all graphics, including ships, skyboxes, and shaders, from 2013

Upgraded to Unity 4.6 with major updates to the interface

Started our second title! More news to come in early this year

Changed the name of our first title from Infinium Run to Infinium Strike

Goals for 2015:

Release Infinium Strike on PC, PS4, and Xbox One

Release two Infinium Strike DLC Packs

Release our second title on mobile

Get partners to finance our company expansion

I always find it is helpful to reflect on the past year and set goals to improve our company (and ourselves) for the coming year. Here are our company strategies we hope to achieve:

We do not want to create clone products

We want to focus on fun, familiar game mechanics along with original elements

We have a laser-like focus on immersive elements in the game, including graphics and interface

We are a multi-platform company

Our games appeal to both casual and hard core audiences

I am confident we have made substantial progress in achieving these 2014 strategies. It is a tall order to continue our trek down this path. For 2015, we will introduce our first two titles, and this time next year, we could be talking about growing our company and products even more!  

Take care. 

[codexworlds-blog]

Infinium Run October Update

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It's time for an update on our futuristic tower defense game, Infinium Run.

The game

We are closing in on a pre-alpha build in November. This is an internal build to take our fully playable prototype, mission and game play data into our production engine. Of course, the art we have been working on over the past 14 months can now be integrated into a fully playable mission!

Development

Mission Design: 75% Complete  ("complete" = first draft)

Dialog and Text: 20% Complete

Core Game Graphics: 100% Complete Pending Final Tweaks

Animation: 40%

Effects: 10%

Integration: 30%

Programming: 50%

Why are so many things far from complete at this time in development? For example, why can't the dialog be finished for the game? For efficiency reasons, we want to get a fully playable alpha out to the public to get feedback on missions and game play. If we go ahead and finalize a script and record it before testing the game, changes to the missions and structure can greatly affect the storytelling, and then we are pressured to keep a sub-par game to match our story, which we already locked down because we recorded dialog early. 

In summary, we are on track for completing graphics and game design. Playable internal and external builds are next. We believe in testing and validation from both our internal team and gamers. If you want to be involved in testing Infinium Run, go ahead and sign up for The Vault on this website. There's a free copy of the game for you ... and more!

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Tactics for Production Part 4

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How do we develop project teams within our overall 25-person team? There are many challenges in making and publishing a game and just as many challenges in managing a team of 25 people. This blog will give more insights on how our decentralized indie team works on both development and publishing projects. Here are some of details/challenges:

We need to track dozens of projects with progress made on a weekly basis

Quality iterations need to be made

The editors do not have time to see every iteration and comment on every step, yet they need to ultimately approve the "final" version of every project

How do we balance the needs of Waterfall with the extensive documentation and updates with the frequent iterations and meetings of Agile/SCRUM?

First, here's the makeup of our team:

Notice we split the team between publishing/design and development. Although there are many shared assets and projects (e.g., videos, screenshots, making of, etc.), we decided to keep each team separated, mostly, with two leads: a production lead, Michael; and design/publishing, Dex. We've also indicated the many other leads in this chart with director, senior, or manager in their title. It should be noted that titles can seem unimportant to an indie, but our experience has been with so many projects going on, it is important to have people know their role in the company and, especially, on any given project. It is not uncommon for one person to have 6 or 7 projects on his or her plate at one time. Understanding who is an editor, who is the lead, and who is a team member is crucial. Of course, there are many cases where these roles are all the same person!

For all our projects, we practice a funneling process. At the top of the funnel, we brainstorm, get tons of feedback, and let the team members try out their own designs. As we move down the funnel, the project needs to be approved by a larger group. Ultimately, the final decisions include the lead and Michael and/or Dex. 

In addition, we take the approved design for the project and go into implementation mode. Again, we iterate, but we also take the specs seriously. This is our way of combining both Waterfall and Scrum. The specs need to be updated on major iterations because they are our guide in development. Scrum tends to take the lead from playable prototypes or mockups. Again, without taking away any feedback we get from prototypes and mockups, we don't lose sight of our original specs and hope to capture changes as needed and update the spec accordingly. 

Practically, this attention to specs, controlled iterations, and approvals through a lead and editors leads us to a much more structured process of moving down the funnel. In other words, the variance of our changes tends to be less than a full Scrum but more than a typical Waterfall system. The sheer amount of documentation and approvals discourage us from too many changes. The exercise of documenting and getting approvals theoretically gets us closer to final quality and lessens the number of iterations compared to pre-planning documentation.  

Having a small budget and a relatively small team doesn't mean that big company processes are all bad. Process and documentation will always be important ... even on a  1-person project!

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Tactics for Production Part 3

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In part 2, we addressed the topic of project management in a theoretical manner with a bunch of definitions. In this blog, I will cover how we run things at Codex Worlds and why. My hope is other indies will benefit from this information.

We have a mix of veterans and new game developers who contributed to the discussions and the eventual approach that we have taken in Codex Worlds' first product, Infinium Run. First, Codex Worlds' challenges:

25 team members spread out all over the U.S.

About 50% of the team are new game developers, many fresh out of school.

Varying knowledge of management, production, and project management.

Lots of projects at a very high level of quality.

Codex Worlds' Strengths:

8 of the team members have extensive management, production, and project management, including running their own companies, leading their own development teams, and managing decentralized game development.

Strong cloud-based communication systems, including communication tools, source control, and management tools: Google Drive, Google Hangout, SVN, etc.

Exceptional indie development tools (available to all!); Maya LT, Unity, Photoshop, and ZBrush (among others) provide our team members with AAA studio level development tools.

Codex Worlds Project Management Philosophies:

Be practical. With limited resources, a full-time project management position is not a good use of resources. We do not strictly follow either Waterfall or SCRUM/Agile systems.

We take the best of several PM systems and use what is practical for our team.

We take into account we have strong, experienced leads for art, programming, design, producing, and publishing.

We realize this is our first product, and half the team is training up to AAA standards as well as high efficiency goals in their respective disciplines, including art, programming, and marketing.

Codex Worlds Day-to-Day:

From Waterfall, we take specs very seriously. Whether it be a design doc, technical spec, production doc, or project management doc, each lead is responsible for several documents to guide their respective groups. We treat this like a NASA mission. If any group fails to provide adequate guidance through documentation, the whole mission fails. We provide docs early and often.

From SCRUM/AGILE, we meet early and often to analyze, comment, and course correct game and publishing content: prototypes, concept art, 3-D models, game builds, web review, video review, etc. Notes are taken, and tasks are assigned based on frequent iterations of content.

We track progress through a system of weekly check-ins and task lists.

We are developing a cloud-based QA and ticketing system.

Codex Future:

We have extensive experience in full PM task tracking and task management systems, such as JIRA. We also understand the entire team must be trained and must follow rules in order to effectively use these comprehensive systems. Given our experienced leads, detailed specs, and frequent evaluation meetings, we decided against a company-wide system of project management. This doesn't mean we aren't benefiting from these excellent PM systems; it means we are being practical given our resources ... Especially for project management. For our next project, who knows? Odds are we will have more, not less, project management. 

[codexworlds-blog]

Tactics for Production Part 2

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I think it is important to dive deeper into the concept of project management. It's not complicated: A project manager or producer manages resources and processes to optimized efficiency in development. How one goes about it is often up for debate, and being an indie developer, this further stretches the already thin resources available to manage game development.  

First, let's cover two popular PM Systems:

Waterfall Project Management: This style of management is often referred to as traditional project management and was popularized in post-World War II redevelopment in Japan and further developed in the many NASA missions to space in the '60s and '70s. Waterfall style of management consists of heavy planning up front that produces detailed specifications for development. It also goes to great lengths to track resource expenditures and assigns costs to them to optimize in the future.

SCRUM and Agile (these systems are similar): SCRUM/Agile was popularized in the late '90s and exploded in the early 2000s. Basically, the notion that projects can be "specced" out early with a specific set of requirements was thrown out the window, and lighter specs with many iterative prototypes and game versions replaced the rigid development stages of Waterfall. For creative ventures, this style of project management is popular to this day.  

These systems stress small teams that focus of short-term deliverables that can be looked at, played, and iterated from an early stage. In addition, there is a strong system of checking in daily, or even multiple times a day, to make sure teams are working in concert. In addition, there is a pool of tasks that are available for anybody who finishes a task early. In contrast to Waterfall, this system has less rigid requirements.

Other concepts:

Every time we do a project, whether we know it or not, we are practicing project management. The question is whether it's a formalized system or all in one's mind. They are all forms of project management.  

It is probably that a mix of systems works better than a purely defined system.   

Good management requires an analysis of the cost and resources associated with a formal system of project management. It is not just the cost of having a resource dedicated to project management. The whole team often has to participate daily to get the intended benefits from either of these systems.  

Pros and Cons of Waterfall Project Management

Pro: Documentation is very important. As teams get bigger or more decentralized, documentation becomes increasingly important. I have found this to be true in every situation I have faced as a producer over the years. Waterfall places a huge emphasis on documentation, which is good thing.  

Pro: Waterfall front loads risks. I go by this saying, "If you can't make it sound fun on paper, it will be hard to make the game fun by building it." Of course, this doesn't always apply, but it does place a high bar on creativity in the early part of production.  

Con: I have seen teams led astray by documentation. Documentation in games are intended to be living documents. This means that weekly, sometimes daily, updates should be made based on feedback, play testing, and general progress in the game. It is nearly impossible to fully detail a game on paper. It's similar to writing a script with no wiggle room for changes and doing it all in one take ... This would be unreasonable. So, people take design too literally and stop looking for the fun in tweaking the game and taking feedback. Both good documentation and flexible design practices through game play iterations can be done at the same time!  

Con: Teams mismatch the resources to the job. In other words, there is not enough resources dedicated to project management, so a producer or other manager puts 5% of their time into it and expects it to work. Many people blame having project management in place as the reason the project is late or of poor quality and argue against having any PM in place, which is faulty logic. 

Pros and Cons of SCRUM/Agile Project Management

Pro: This system focuses on "seeing is believing." It is very true that often our imagination is much bigger than our ability to deliver. It happens quite frequently in game development. This system puts pressure on the development team to deliver working parts of the game early and frequently. There is less trust in the written word, and that is often a good thing.  

Pro: Communication tends to be better with this system. However detailed and process-oriented Waterfall is, the system stops short of defining ways to meet and measure success in those meetings. SCRUM and Agile really stress the importance of these frequent smaller team meetings. This is a great thing.  

Con: This system can be abused and misused by developers who hate documentation or early design work on paper. The argument is that because things change so much in development, why bother creating all this documentation? My experience tells me that this is dangerous thinking. Teams (especially larger, decentralized teams greater than 10) need guidance to stay on the same course. Unless you want to do 4-hour team meetings every day to check everything, documentation is still needed in this system. This refers to specifications such as design docs but also task management and meeting notes. In short, SCRUM and Agile don't equate to no docs.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of project management topics. In the next blog, I will cover how we do project management at Codex Worlds and why. Hopefully, you find this topic worthy as a developer or aspiring developer. Great games are not just made by programmers, artists, and designers. Many games never finish because of poor project management. The irony is project management often gets the blame.