We have been working on our main project for a while now, and during that time there have been several large changes of scope for the game. What started from a love of open world 3D survival RPGs (which is everything we enjoy, but absolutely nowhere near realistic), has settled into a narrative driven adventure game (with a brief dabble into 2D and isometrics along the way). Gradual evolutions of the game concept have been made over this time as we have learned what will work best for us as a team.
The most valuable lesson we have learned along the way is to regularly take a step back and critically look at what we are doing from a broader perspective. What processes are we using to produce assets? Can they be more efficient? How long is prototyping taking? How effectively are we balancing our tasks amongst the team? Asking whether or not we are working within our time/abilities and if it helps get across our core themes has been key to keeping scope manageable and expectations in check.
We love an agile approach, so we always ensure that retrospectives are incorporated into the end of each sprint to focus on these types of questions. It gives us a chance to discuss things that we think went really well, and to pick apart the things that didn’t. It’s helped us learn how to work together as a team, by making explicit our strengths and weaknesses so that we can all grow. Plus we’re always super excited to showcase our work to each other and sharing our lessons learned and skills gained.