Rosenfield Boeira - Lean game development: apply lean frameworks to the process of game development

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Julia Naomi Rosenfield Boeira 2017

Julia Naomi Rosenfield Boeira Lean Game Development

1. Introduction

Julia Naomi Rosenfield Boeira 1

(1)

Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

This books goal is to present a new way of developing games to teams with little, or no, experience in agile or lean methodologies.

Note

The word lean derives from the Toyota Production System, which has a systematic method for waste minimization without sacrificing productivity.

If you have some experience with game development, now is the time to put it aside. Its time to forget everything you know and, with an open mind, learn something new. The goal of this book is to provide you with a game production model that prevents waste, reduces bugs, and offers continuous reviews; the book even offers a sequence of steps to eliminate unnecessary tasks. When I developed this methodology, I was thinking of small game companies, but it can be used in enterprises as well.

Why Lean Game Development, Not Agile Game Development?

Lean is something beyond agile. In fact, many game companies have been unsuccessful while trying to use agile methodologies. In addition, sometimes companies confuse agile with scrums, thinking of scrums as the only available agile tool.

The same happens with extreme programming (XP) , and this confusion can have disastrous results. In fact, its common to see companies adopting scrums but not adopting the basic principles of agile, which overloads the development teams.

Lean game development can meet all the needs of the game industry, but there are certain game-related aspects to take into account. For instance, game production is never 100 percent efficient since you cant predict every possible problem, and it is far more difficult to find the minimum in a minimum viable product (MVP) in game development than in other industries. If you set fixed deadlines, the best you can expect is to get very close to them because unexpected problems will continue to happen, even after the deadlines. Its necessary to behave organically regarding changes, building in the ability to adapt to the environment.

Lean game development offers a methodological alternative to game development that can help you to eliminate waste, get results as fast as possible, strengthen and empower teamwork, and allow you to have a better view of the whole work. How do you improve this visualization of the work? Kanban (which literally means a visualization card) is a classic tool that lean development teams use.

That said, its important to emphasize that in no way are lean, scrum, XP, or kanban exclusive. They can be used together, allowing the best features of each one to be used.

How Do Lean and Agile Relate to the Game World?

Lean game development is, above all, strongly inspired by agile and can take advantage of agiles tools to develop software. Therefore, lets look at the Agile Manifesto and interpret it to represent the vision of games. For such, I suggest the following point of view for games:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Games running over comprehensive documentation
• Audience collaboration over sales
• Spontaneous development over following a strict plan

Games and Software Relate Much More Deeply

To successfully understand lean game development, you should first understand that digital games are also software and that software can be seen as a cooperative game of innovation and communication . Games are not only for children; games are used to describe everything from romantic experiences to advanced military strategies, but they can also be used as another form of software development.

Games for Military Strategies

The Blitzkrieg board game was used for a long time to help train army officers. The game is set in World War II, in which two armies confront each other: Great Blue and Big Red. There are five countries, but the alliances are not built strictly and can vary depending upon how the game is played.

The game has three modes: simple, advanced, and tournament. One of the most interesting aspects is that advanced mode offers many combat units, such as infantry, artillery, armored, assault, shots, bombing, etc.

Unfortunately, the game is usually hard to find, maybe because its old. Figure shows the (gigantic) board of the game with the different colored pieces.

Figure 1-1

Avalon Hills Blitzkrieg board. Source: boardgamegeek.com

When someone proposes to play a game, hundreds of alternatives come to mind: tic-tac-toe, checkers, chess, poker, 21, hide-and-seek, ping-pong, and so on. But usually games fall into certain categories (or several) that help players to realize how they are played and what the goals are.

• Zero-sum : These are games in which each user plays on an opposite side, and if one side wins, the other loses. Examples include checkers and tic-tac-toe.
• Non-zero-sum : These are games with multiple winners and multiple losers. Examples include poker and hide-and-seek.
• Positional : These are games where the overall state of the game can be determined by looking at the board. Examples include chess and tic-tac-toe.
• Competitive : All the previously mentioned games are competitive, in which theres a clear notion of winning and losing.
• Cooperative : In these games, people play together to win, or until they find it necessary.
• Finite : These are games that have an end.
• Infinite : These are games where the primarily intention is to keep playing. In other words, the goal is to remain in the game.

What Kind of Game Is Software Development?

Many people see software development as a positional game, with a cycle of small victories and a clear goal. But a software game is much more than positions on a board and much more than a game that your team has to win.

Software development is a cooperative game, in which all pieces must help each other in order to reach each one of the goals. Think of a survival game, in which each member of the team has a specific and unique skill that is useful to the groups survival. The software development process is similar to the concept of a cooperative game. There should be no leader; instead, a group of people unite to make the best decisions and divide tasks the best way possible to survive (win).

Where Did We Go Wrong?

Unfortunately, over time, people got the idea that stricter and heavier methodologies, with more control and more artifacts, would be safer for a projects development. However, no one likes to play games with hundreds of rules that need to be remembered every minute in order for the player to perform correctly.

The best games are those that can be played in a relaxed way so that if a rule is broken, there wont be big consequences for the result. Furthermore, games that allow the player to be creative and imaginative tend to provide much more cooperation. You just have to observe kids playing board games to realize this.

Taking this into consideration, why not apply this to software development? Lets look at an example of the negative effect that rigidity and heaviness could have on the classic board game Monopoly. Imagine that, besides the players, you have a person solely responsible for administering the bank, one for administrating the real estate, another one for administrating the real estate bank, one for administrating your life (chance cards), one police officer for administrating prisons and the flow of characters, another one to roll the dice, and so on.

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