I was relatively satisfied with our pre-production phase during the first week.

From the beginning of the semester, the team ran into a handful of issues that hampered progress. One of these issues was technical and nature, and had to do with the way our organization tools were set up; the Gantt chart module attached to our Trello board had its permissions incorrectly set up, resulting in many group members being unable to see their responsibilities. Another issue came with group members in the group forgetting their roles, and deadlines for certain week one tasks. This can be attributed to the adjustment period from winter vacation into the second semester, and is understandable. Nonetheless, these factors resulted in week 1's goals taking a sluggish start.

Figure: options to view Gantt plugin were not visible due to permission issues.

Despite shaky beginnings, I managed to complete my allocated tasks of creating mood boards and concepts before the deadline. As well, the group quickly managed to regain its bearings with a group meeting, and through completing the workshop exercise. The exercise was quite useful in reaffirming group values and responsibilities after a long absence, and helped me to regain my motivation for the project. Likewise, or extended absence and distance from the project also allowed certain new perspectives and goals to come to light in the workshop session. For example, the team affirmed the importance of not only creating a playable game, but also the importance of creating a game that most players would actually complete; it would be very difficult for us to convey our intended message if the player doesn't even stay around for the entire narrative. Thus, we decided that creating effective tutorials and maintaining player interest would be of utmost importance going forward.

Figure: Thanks to the exhaustive efforts made beforehand in developing a mutually agreeable team charter, we found that our group values and goals had stayed the same as last semester. 

Overall, I am rather satisfied with progress made on the project this week, and am looking forward to see this project through to its end. That it resembles the final product outlined in our game design document would be a great bonus.