Well this week I finally had one of those lovely penny drop moments, which is always nice, and something I feared would happen did not actually happen.
We have begun our first Rapid Ideation sprint (sprint 2 of the module) and I was very apprehensive going in to this. I made a humourous post on the Spark Forum for the week detailing all of my usual, and seemingly common amongst the cohort, assumptions of how I though the project was going to go.
Well to start off I should probably say that I am currently like a kid on Christmas Eve at the moment with regards to this Sprints content. Last weeks prototyping was just pure fun for me so doing more of it, and the chance to make something more fully formed just makes me giddy.
I can’t wait to get the theme.
I can’t wait to get the inevitable creative block.
I can’t wait to scream at my monitor because something is not working.
I can’t wait to sit in https://hacknplan.com/ planning out lots of stuff that I will never get to do because I always over-scope.
I can’t wait to have my wife throw things at me shouting things like ‘Stop talking at your monitor, its an inanimate object you buffoon’.
I can’t wait to get distracted by Netflix.
I can’t wait to spend 30 minutes debugging an issue only to find out I had not actually put the script on to a game object (I do this way too much).
I can’t wait for that inevitable bong sound as my computer crashes just as I am doing the build.
Its going to be amazing!
So as you can see I was both excited but also, in the back of the mind, dreaded what was about to come. The reason being is that I have been in the position a lot of times before and the above things have all happened. I am also a very stubborn individual when I want to be and I just had this feeling that I was going to hate everything about this sprint. We were going to be given a topic or theme that was daft or not interesting, just to show that you don’t get to work on what you want to. Or it was going to be something that we had to add a serious or narrative nature to, two things I think are pointless in video games. Or we would be limited in some way that inevitably anything I wanted to do would be restricted or off limits.
Unfortunately for me I was also going to be working when the theme was being released so I would not be there at the time to show my disappointment and put my grumpy face on. But then as I was sat their at work, waiting for someone on the Discord to throw me a bone I wrote a single task in my Hack n Plan board for this sprint.
Yep I decided to be open-minded and try it for once. That task is still there, just to remind me on what my purpose is for this sprint.
Oh and it worked.
Why did it work? Because I disrupted my usual method of working. Largely by the enforced work schedule but because I chose to. As I was not there for the theme release and not able to jump straight on it when I saw the image I had some reservations but could not do anything so I let it bubble for a while, I slept on it basically.
The next morning I woke up and watched the lecture in my own time at my own pace. Wait a second we could use an article alongside the image, or we could just use an article. Well hello beautiful! Just find an article to fit with what you want to do.
NO! Remember the task.
Stupid task. Why would I write that and then have the guts to stick to it? OK fine, I will just use the image then. I suppose you will expect me to do something like brainstorming as well.
Stupid HacknPlan. But not stupid really, because I did and it worked. And I am not even using the article at all. I am just going with image. There will be a post up in a bit about how far along I am with it as well but lets just say I am really happy with where I am at.
And it is because I actively chose to disrupt, I chose to look back over the last sprint, re-absorb the content, reflect on why I am here to do this course, and ultimately decided to make a change in myself.
Will it work again? I do not know, but it has worked this time so surely there is some merit it trying it again and seeing if it works. If it does not I know I have my old method of working, you know get grumpy with it, shout at it and ultimately brute force it (the business way as I am now calling it) but I think I have afforded myself the chance to at least try something new.
Figures
Feature Image: Rubino, G & Thorndike, K (2021) ‘Chosen cards for the activity’ Created on 23rd June 2021
Figure 1: Charlish, R (2021) ‘Hack n Plan job’ Created on June 27th 2021
Figure 2: Charlish, R (2021) ‘Another Hack n Plan job’ Created on June 27th 2021
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