Feed Back

Yesterday I spent all day porting a game, that me and my friend created, from pc to android platform. The major thing I had to implement was an on screen analogue joystick to move the player around. It was my first time coding this script and I had an idea how to make it work from a game I had played on my phone.

I started working, and bit by bit it was all coming together. When I create something, I like to start from the most basic thing, make it work as it should and then step to the next simpler task it requires. Doing so, I don’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of work, but instead, I accomplish a small goal after another. At one point, the joystick was working as I wanted, except that the position of the object in the 3D world was not matching the position on screen of a perspective camera. After a while, I managed to successfully implement a code to find the position on screen. Last thing I wanted to do was that the joystick only works when the fingers touch is in its area. After that, I started testing it out with the player movement and it was working good enough, except for the touch area. The fist touch area was where it should be, after that it shifts up and to the left becoming offset from the actual joystick and it was annoying to play like that. I was trying hard to find why it was shifting, but I could not find the cause. Apart from that it was still annoying to have to put your finger on position to move the player, but I could not realise that.

After a sometime messing, around with it, my brother came in and I showed it to him so that he could give me feedback. After a few seconds playing with it, he said, why don’t you make him move anywhere you touch on screen like a game I have. It was just a brilliant idea, I implemented that in a second since I had all the hard work done. It was amazing how he could figure out the problem and give me the solution in such few time while my brain was all tired and fogged.

Over thinking sometimes makes me work harder and in the wrong direction, whilst thinking simple and effectively is the major goal. What I have learned from this experience is that you have to get feedback as soon as you can, even before starting the project, because other people who had different experiences might think in different ways which might give you ideas that you have not even thought of.

I think that one of my draw back and yet advantage is my mechanical background. I believe that when I was, young I was much more creative and free, whilst now I became more logical and try to make things work because that is how they are supposed to be in my mind. This kept me focused on one idea, which resulted not to be the most effective and restricted me of further exploration. In this project I also skipped brain storming which usually for me is the most import aspect of your project since it lets you for see and explore new ideas before even start working, which results in less waste of time.

From now on I will try and learn from this experience that brain storming and feedbacks are not to be skipped.