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Difference between revisions of "IS480 Team wiki: 2012T1 6P Project Documentation Tools"

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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:90%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:4px solid #585858; border-top:4px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[Image:6PGralch.png]] [[IS480 Team wiki: 2012T1 6P Gralch |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Game</b></font>]]
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:90%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:4px solid #585858; border-top:4px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[Image:6PGralch.png]] [[IS480 Team wiki: 2012T1 6P Gralch |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Game Development</b></font>]]
 
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| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
 
| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_Tools |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Tools evaluation</b></font>]]
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#D8D8D8;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_Tools |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Tools evaluation</b></font>]]
  
 
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| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
 
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_ProjectHierarchy |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Unity3D files hierarchy</b></font>]]
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_ProjectHierachy |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Project Hierarchy</b></font>]]
  
 
| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
 
| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation#Business_Efforts |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Business Efforts</b></font>]]
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_Business_Efforts |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Business Efforts</b></font>]]
  
 
| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
 
| style="border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; background:none;" width="2%" | &nbsp;
| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation#Reflection |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Team Reflections</b></font>]]
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| style="padding:0.4em; font-size:70%; background-color:#ffffff;  border-bottom:2px solid #585858; border-top:2px solid #585858; text-align:center; color:#585858" width="10%" | [[IS480_Team_wiki:_2012T1_6P_Project_Documentation_Reflection |<font color="#000000" size=2><b>Team Reflections</b></font>
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| style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0 1px 0 0"| Our team has decided to use Microsoft Expression Blend 4 as our tool for hi-fi prototyping.
 
| style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0 1px 0 0"| Our team has decided to use Microsoft Expression Blend 4 as our tool for hi-fi prototyping.
 
| style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0;" | <span style="color:green">Recommend</span>
 
| style="border-style: solid; border-width: 0;" | <span style="color:green">Recommend</span>
|}
 
</div>
 
 
==<div style="background: #68cd00; padding: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0.3em"><font color= #FFFFF>Diagrams</font></div>==
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====System Architecture====
 
We have considered the following architecture set up initially to support multiplayer. However, this set up requires a lot of resources and we have decided to exclude multiplayer support for the scope of IS480. We will be looking into developing multiplayer feature in the near future.
 
 
[[Image:System Architecture V3 Image.jpg]]
 
</div>
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
'''Why have a Game Server and Database Server?'''
 
#Our game requires data storage for user's login, progress tracking, feedbacks and more. Additionally, it is projected that there would be multi-player mode support. Hence a game server is required for logic processing, request and response handling.
 
#With a game server that handles data transfer between game clients and database, we ensure the security of our database as no direct connection is allowed. All database connection would be initiated from our server, which is protected by an authentication system.
 
 
'''Why do we use SmartFoxServer 2X?'''
 
#SmartFoxServer 2X is a free server that provides out of the box functionalities for server development that handles concurrent interaction between multiple game clients and the game server.
 
#It is 100% free for 100 concurrent users for the community version, which is good enough for our initial launch for the moment.
 
#SmartFoxServer 2X support flexible deployment. It can be deployed locally on Windows/Linux/Mac/Cloud.
 
 
'''Why do we use MySQL as our database management software?'''
 
#It's free!
 
#Everyone in the team is experienced with the language and usage.
 
 
'''Why deployment on the cloud platform and why Amazon EC2 specifically?'''
 
#Cloud platform is highly scalable! It has the ability to pump in enough resources to support sudden spike in active users' rate and also automatic tuning down of resources when there is a drop.
 
#Zero start-up cost for developers like us, who wishes to test out our product without sacrificing performance and heavy investment on hardware assets.
 
#Amazon EC2 support seamless and quick deployment of SmartFoxServer 2X and it gives developers an option to enable server load balancing as an additional premium option when the server load increases in the future.
 
 
'''Why use Rightscale platform?'''
 
#Rightscale provide developers a free and quick configuration setup for SmartFoxServer 2X to be deployed onto Amazon EC2.
 
#It saves a lot of time and best practices are followed in this way.
 
</div>
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====Software Architecture====
 
 
The main focus of the development work of our project is to manipulate with the components' behaviour with the use of C# scripts.
 
 
[[Image:SoftwareDesign.png]]
 
 
With the use of C# scripts, we are able to have precise control on every collision events and effects in the scenes.
 
</div>
 
 
==<div style="background: #68cd00; padding: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0.3em"><font color= #FFFFF>Project Files Hierarchy</font></div>==
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====Overview====
 
[[Image:Project files hierachy.png]]
 
</div>
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====Game Scenes====
 
=====22 Game Scenes:=====
 
[[Image:Gamescenes.png]]
 
</div>
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====Project Scripts====
 
=====24 Scripts:=====
 
[[Image:C-scripts.png]]
 
</div>
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
====Sprite Collections====
 
=====Sprite Collections for Game:=====
 
[[Image:SpriteCollectionForGame.png]]
 
 
=====Sprite Collections for UI:=====
 
[[Image:SpriteCollectionForUI.png]]
 
</div>
 
 
==<div style="background: #68cd00; padding: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0.3em"><font color= #FFFFF>Business Efforts</font></div>==
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
 
====Business Aspect====
 
 
'''Game Requirement Analysis'''
 
 
With each round of user testing, an analysis was done based on the results finding as well as the information found on game stores. This serves to better align the team's game objective and to keep the project tasks focused and specific.
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v1.docx | Game Analysis 1]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v2.docx | Game Analysis 2]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v3.docx | Game Analysis 3]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v4.docx | Game Analysis 4]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v4.docx | Game Analysis 5]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v4.docx | Game Analysis 6]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v4.docx | Game Analysis 7]]
 
 
[[Media:Game_requirement_reviews_v4.docx | Game Analysis 8]]
 
 
'''Game Scope'''
 
 
Prior to our game conceptualization, an analysis was done on the mobile game app industry to identify several key factors including:
 
 
1. Industry overview and potential
 
 
2. Mobile platform to target
 
 
3. Game model
 
 
4. Player type
 
 
5. Game category
 
 
The mobile game industry is prospective for aspiring game developers. Through detailed analysis and discussion, the team has decided to proceed with a game launch targeted at the Android market due to hardware limitations for development on iOS and the growing Android market. The game will follow a freemium model (no charge for the app) with a simple game concept to be listed under "action and arcade". This is targeted to several player types in order to establish a growing fan base before any intentions to monetize the game application. The team will not look into monetizing the game as it is not the focus of the project.
 
 
More details can be found here: [[Media:IS480_-_Business_Analysis_for_Mobile_Market.pdf | Mobile Game Market Analysis]]
 
 
'''Game Analysis'''
 
 
Following the initial paper prototypes, there has been user feedback which had to be addressed concerning the game concept, in particular whether the game is scalable. To avoid a scenario where the team dives too deep into the game development and being stuck at a roadblock, it is necessary to look towards other successful games currently in the market which has similar game concept to Gralch. "Swing Shot" by com2UsHub has been identified. In the following document, we took a detailed analysis of the game and how we can further improve Gralch.
 
 
Game comparison analysis can be found here: [[Media:IS480_-_Game_Comparison_Analysis.pdf | Game Comparison]]
 
 
'''Potential Funding:'''
 
 
The team acknowledged the need for funding early on in the project. We have looked towards SMU IIE and MDA for funding but have been unsuccessful.
 
 
MDA Application: [[Media:6_Production_-_Application_for_MDA_Development_Assistance.pdf | MDA Development Assistance Application]]
 
 
'''Moving ahead'''
 
 
Firstly, we will explore other funding alternatives. Secondly, we will look into expanding the game. Features such as multiplayer support, addition of new characters, addition of new world/themes and enhanced graphics effects will be implemented. Lastly, our game received a average rating of 4.6 out of 5 in Google Play Store, this reflects well on the popularity of our game. Thus, the team will also be looking into porting the game over to iOS and hope to attract more user to play our game.
 
 
====Marketing aspect====
 
Our approach towards our game launch consists of two main phases; pre-launch and post-launch. Our efforts for pre-launch focus primarily on word of mouth through peers and people we approached for our user tests. In our post-launch, we tapped on social media platforms such as facebook, twitter and our team's website and blog to increase our marketing presence. Due to the constraint of a lack of budget from any sponsors or clients, we worked within our means to increase our team's presence. We came up with a marketing strategy that utilizes cost effective solution to increase 6P presence and organic searches in the web.
 
 
'''Choosing a name for our game'''
 
 
 
'''Web presence'''
 
 
As part of our marketing campaign, we have created our [http://6production.com web page] to increase our web presence. On our website, we have provided the link to download our app from Google Play, forms to contact us for support and general enquiry.
 
 
We have also listed our sites to Google and Bing/Yahoo search engine using the respective webmaster tools.
 
 
In addition, we have also set up [http://6production.com/blog/ blog] where we will post the latest development updates and talk about recent events. By doing so, it will helps to add in new contents to our site, thus increasing the change of being crawled by search engines bots. The blog is updated on a weekly basis, with more entries made during the launch of our game application.
 
 
'''Social media pages'''
 
 
We have set up [http://twitter.com/6_production Twitter account], [http://www.facebook.com/team6production Facebook] and [https://plus.google.com/104031885077324464612/posts Google+] pages. Social media is a good platform for us to share the news of release update to our friends and spread via word of mouth. We will post status updates to all our social media accounts frequently and will help create awareness within our social circles. Leveraging on such platforms in addition to forums allows us to reach out internationally. This has helped with increasing international downloads.
 
</div>
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
 
===SEO: Selection of keywords===
 
 
As our game story is primarily based on a monster following a trail of cherries to find his friends, we have decided to focus on our keywords on "monster". To make it more specific, we have include "games" this keyword and thus, "monster games" shall be the main keyword we are focusing on for our SEO efforts.
 
 
A quick check on '''"monster games"''' using the Google Keyword tool, it revealed that there are a total of 1.5 million searches performed on variants of "monster games" globally in every month. This shows that games with story focusing on monsters concept is abundant and it is a competitive market.
 
 
[[Image:Screen Shot 2012-10-08 at 12.15.45 AM.png]]
 
 
And currently, our game is free and another keyword to focus on instinctively will be '''"Android free games"'''. Likewise, after doing a check using Google Keyword tool, it revealed that there is a global search performed on variants of this keyword every month. This is another keyword that we can use in our SEO.
 
 
[[Image:Screen Shot 2012-10-08 at 12.23.44 AM.png]]
 
 
All in all, we have been using '''variants of "monster games" and "android free games"''' in all our site contents, social media posts and app description in Google Play Store. However, SEO takes time to refine and perfect and it will not be able to drive downloads from Google Play Store nor increase our website traffic overnight. Nevertheless, we will be monitoring the web traffic frequently using Google analytics tool and will refine our selection of keywords, thus increasing organic searches from search engine.
 
</div>
 
 
==<div style="background: #68cd00; padding: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 0.3em"><font color= #FFFFF> Reflection</font></div>==
 
 
<div style="border-left: #585858 solid 12px; padding: 0px 30px 0px 18px; ">
 
===Team Reflection:===
 
 
 
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; height:350px"
 
|+
 
|-
 
! scope="col" width="100" |Member
 
! scope="col" width="400" |Reflections
 
! scope="col" width="100" |Member
 
! scope="col" width="400" |Reflections
 
|-
 
 
|[[Image:6pBen.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- Conceptualization and game level designing are not simple <br>
 
- Making use of user feedback for refinement is a tough call <br>
 
- Reaching out to the mobile game app market is challenging even with all our various marketing strategies in place <br>
 
|[[Image:Cam.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- Managing trade-offs between user feedback and team decision<br>
 
- Discovery of toolkits/frameworks along the way is great for future development<br>
 
- Making a fun game is hard. But the same can be said for anything else, quite frankly. It takes practice.
 
|-
 
 
|[[Image:Cw.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- The importance of two-way communication between members and the public, especially in the case of a self-proposed one <br>
 
- It is one of the most critical factors which make or break the team, and also the success of the project
 
 
|[[Image:Larry.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- Users are not always right<br>
 
- Learnt to critically analyze user feedback and prioritize the ones useful for our future development
 
|-
 
 
|[[Image:Wilson.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- Challenge in managing game development <br>
 
- Learnt the importance of doing more iterations to create a fun game
 
|[[Image:Yy.jpg]]
 
|style="text-align: left;"|
 
- Hard to manage individuals’ expectations as standards differ <br>
 
- Learnt to compromise and decide on what works best for the team
 
 
|}
 
|}
 
</div>
 
</div>

Latest revision as of 18:54, 27 November 2012

6pcube.png Home   6pProject overviewicon.pngProject Overview   6pProject managementIcon.png Project Management   Project Docs.png Project Documentation   6pMeeting minutesIcon.png Meeting Minutes   6PGralch.png Game Development


  Downloads   Tools evaluation   Diagrams   Project Hierarchy   Business Efforts   Team Reflections  


Tools and Technologies evaluation

Software Evaluation

We are a self-proposed FYP project team resulting not having a business sponsor or client to give us a list of software to be used. In the market, there are several companies offering similar products for a particular function. Thus, our team needs to evaluate the possible software to be used, which mostly we have not used before.

The approach that we took when evaluating a software is to first read online reviews on the software and shortlist a few names. From this shortlisted list, we will list down the functions they provide. From there on, we will categorized the functions and list our findings in our evaluation form. The table below represent the software our team had collaboratively evaluated.

Deployment
Software/Tool Description Advantages Disadvantages Conclusion Status
Amazon EC2 Cloud computing tool for web services without the need of physical IT infrastructure.
  • Pay-as-use basis.
  • Startup cost is almost none as physical infrastructure such as servers is not required.
  • Ease of flexibility in development programme used.
  • It is highly scalable to support any sudden spike and drop in active users’ rate.
  • Initial setup would take a while else not much disadvantages in using cloud service.
The amazon cloud server is definitely going to be used within our project development as it provide the computational power to let us test our project without any initial setup cost at all and it provides the flexibility of development engine deployed. Recommend
SmartFoxServer 2X Multiplayer community development tool that supports Android, iOS, Unity 3D
  • It is a free server that provides out of the box functionalities for interaction between game clients and web server development.
  • It has specific support for Unity3D projects as well as Android platform projects.
  • It is 100% free, for its community edition that supports 100 concurrent users.
  • It can be deployed onto the cloud, windows, mac os and linux.
  • Cloud deployment is easy as rightscale supports the installations of SFS 2X onto EC2 instance with few simple steps.
*Once scaling up is required to support more concurrent users, license fee can be steep. This is the likely that we would choose this to be our game server as it fulfills the requirements that our game project need and it scalable anytime when required. Recommend
Skiller Multiplayer SDK for game server Free mobile social gaming platform for developer to develop and include social and multiplayer gaming feature in their games.
  • Free SDK for developers to develop multiplayer feature.
  • SDK provides cross platform support (J2Me, Android, Windows 7 and BlackBerry)
  • Not widely adopted, small community and little support or guide.
Though it is free, it may not be the best SDK or game server for multiplayer support as it is still not as robust and widely adopted by developers. Keep In View
Google App Engine A cloud service that provide computation power that scale according to your demand. It’s a cloud service provided by Google which charges on a pay-per-use basis.
  • Ease of setup
  • No initial cost for developmental and testing purpose.
  • Ability to scale and provide failover without the need for developers to spend time for tedious hardware configuration.
  • Have to use Google’s proprietary database, big table and datastore else the next best option is Google Cloud SQL for relational database support.
  • Lesser control as compared to Amazon EC2.
Google App Engine would be one of the option for our project development, however taking into consideration of using game server like SmartFoxServer 2x which is highly compatible and easily configurable on Amazon EC2. The latter option would most probably be the final choice for cloud service. Keep In View
Development
Software/Tool Description Advantages Disadvantages Conclusion Status
Andengine Free 2D OpenGL game engine for Android mobile game development.
  • Based on Java language, everyone in the team is familiar with Java.
  • Open source and its free.
  • Easily integrated with eclipse, an IDE that the whole team is familiar with as well.
  • Has a community of users, tutorial and guides are also available for learning.
  • Not really scalable to other platforms, if the game would to be ported to iOS or other mobile operating system in the future.
  • It is limited to 2D, future intention of adding 3D graphics would not be possible.
Though the limitation of this engine is high, it serves the needs of our current project, and it is open source. It is a likely candidate that our team would choose as the game engine for our project. Recommend
Unity3D A game development tool that supports both 2D and 3D development. Supported platforms includes, PC, Macintosh, iOS and Android.
  • Ease of publishing developed game to multiple platforms.
  • Ease of testing, as all changes and addition of gameplay logics and scenes can be tested accurately on the editor without deployment.
  • Good support and guides from forum, wiki and working examples.
  • Ease of integration with multiple game servers.
  • Very high license cost
  • Highly complex for first time mobile graphic game designers
Unity 3D would be recommended for its support from Unity’s large community and for its powerful game engine which ease the development work which shorten the development time needed in the long run. Recommend
Corona A platform for mobile development, allow multiple publication across platforms and OS (iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Nook) with one single code base. Automatic scaling of screen resolution of application depending of screen size of device.
  • Support windows and mac OS.
  • Support database interaction.
  • Large community of users.
  • Cheaper license fee as compared to unity 3D.
  • Have to pick up LUA language.
  • Not as powerful or extensive as Unity 3D.
This is a very affordable mobile development platform, however for it is not the best candidate for our game project development. Keep In View
Gamesalad 2D Game Engine
  • Ease of use - able to create games relatively easily (compared to engines like Unity 3D) through its simple drag and drop features
  • A major drawback for game salad is that it does not support database, which means that we'll be unable to proceed with our “challenge a friend” with game salad
Given the fact that the “challenge-a-friend” feature is one of the main selling point of our game, we have decided to drop game salad, even with it’s easy to use interface. Reject
MySQL Open source relational database
  • Ease of use - able to create games relatively easily (compared to engines like Unity 3D) through its simple drag and drop features
  • A major drawback for game salad is that it does not support database, which means that we'll be unable to proceed with our “challenge a friend” with game salad.
Given the fact that the “challenge-a-friend” feature is one of the main selling point of our game, we have decided to drop game salad, even with it’s easy to use interface. Recommend
Project Management
Software/Tool Description Advantages Disadvantages Conclusion Status
Jira A project management tool that helps users to track bugs and tasks, link issues to related source code, plan agile development, monitor activity, and report on project status.
  • Tight integration of bugs reporting to the particular line in the source code.
  • It has various add on such as greenhopper (for agile planning) and fisheye (bug tracking). However, these additional plugin costs monthly subscription fees.
  • The dashboard customization level is more in depth than Joomla project fork.
  • The task tracking is awesome, where the PM can know the project progress at one glance.
  • It supports SVN version control and the source code and bug tracking can be linked together.
  • It supports Google App Engine integration
  • It is a web portal, where team members can access via mobile devices.
  • The greenhopper plugin for agile development is not released yet. JIRA allows PM to issues task to members and track the progress via the dashboard. But it lacks the MS project interface, where PM can have a list view of the tasks and plan the iteration accordingly.
  • The configuration page is confusing. The user guide is not explicit in the instruction.
  • The page takes a long time to load. And the price for monthly subscription is $10 for 10 users.
  • Team members need to log in to web page and indicate the start of a task and vice versa for the end of a task and this could be a hassle.
JIRA is good but the price for monthly subscription is too expensive. The bug tracking is good as links to the line of code. But an additional plugin cost an extra 10 dollars per month. And the features offered are not as useful and is unsuitable to be used in our project. Planning tasks is important to the PM. But JIRA does not offer an as good interface as the MS project for PM to plan the schedule. Hence we conclude that by coupling MS Project with SVN, it serve the necessary needs for our project. Reject
Joomla It is project management system that is build on open source and can be extend with add on(subject to additional pricing).
  • It has a dashboard where user can customize and show the KPIs of the project.
  • It has a file management system where teams can share their documents and files
  • It has a calendar feature.
  • It is task manager, where PM can easily assign and keep track of tasks.
  • It is free for the above mention functions.
  • It can be hosted on a shared hosting domain.
  • It page loads slow because it is a web application
  • The configuration and setting up is a complex.
  • The file management system does not support version control features.
  • The web interface is not as user friendly and users are expected to spend quite some time to learn and use it.
This web application is promising but it will not be suitable in our context because it lacks the version control. We need a version control for development iterations. The task tracking is good for PM, but it is not sufficient to attract us to use it. Reject
Others
Software/Tool Description Advantages Disadvantages Conclusion Status
SVN A source control management software that allows collaborative development and support versioning of shared files.
  • Free server provided by school.
  • Setup up is really simple and the whole team has experience using it.
  • SVN is free and support multiple operation system.
  • Unity project files can be committed and updated without issues (Certain unique files have to be configured to be ignored).
  • Simple conflict management.
  • Disadvantages

No branching is allowed, users are not able to create an individual branch of the current codes to test things out.

SVN is the right source control tool for our project. The team is familiar with the usage of the software and its ease of setup help the team to get started with source control in the shortest amount of time. Recommend
Github An open source distributed version control system that is lightweight and fast. It provides additional branching and merging feature that other Source Control Management (SCM) software does not provide.
  • Support multiple local branches that allow developer to test out and commit ideas. Developers can then switch back to the original state and merge the changes in or just throw all the experimental work away.
  • Distributed SCM, every user has a full backup of the main server which creates a multiple backups, having no single point of failure. Developers do a clone of the source code instead of just checking out the tip of it.
  • Faster operations as compared to SVN (commit, update, logs and Diff) except for cloning which usually only take place once during the initial setup.
  • Conflict management is not as straight forward as SVN. Developers require certain know-how of the command prompt commands to allow unlocking and resolving of conflicts.
It is really a great source control software with plenty of nice features that might help out the project development, but it come with a price of a higher usage complexity. Reject
Microsoft Expression Blend 4 For prototyping purposes
  • Ease of use – easy to create a working prototype within a short period of time
  • Suitable for hi-fi prototyping for games as Sketchflow Animation feature in Expression Blend makes it possible for users to get a better feel of the gameplay, such as throwing of rocks at enemy etc.
  • Free for SIS students
  • NIL
Our team has decided to use Microsoft Expression Blend 4 as our tool for hi-fi prototyping. Recommend