Starting to blog...

So I've been told that blogs are good to get your ideas down and let others comment and possibly help you out occasionally. So here's my go at it. I'm a software engineer by trade and by hobby. I've been indoctrinated into the Agile software methodologies and I'm starting to put them into practice, not just at work where we're required to, but at home in my little side projects.

So I also have a hobby of videogaming and that tends to creep its way into my hobby of writing software. I've had grand schemes of writing the most amazing game that's interesting, replayable, exensible and just generally really fun. So I've had several failed attempts and I keep them all in my local SVN repo and occassionally dig them out and remember why I stopped that approach.

I think the reason why I fail most often in my attempts is that I try to do too much. In Agile terms, my stories are entirely too big. So I've decided that I need a backlog of stories that I can massage down to what would be doable and then focus on each one and get a sence of accomplishment and direction of where I'm going next. I've also decided to scale down the scope of my game. For the moment, it will involve moving pieces around a board and possibly taking your opponents pieces. Sounds very checkeredy but I figure that if I can start there, I can build uppon it. Maybe make it multiplayer, then make it networkable, then be able to load in different pieces, then make the board changeable. Then maybe I can pull out a framework that would allow me to create great extensible game that I know everyone will love and want to play! ... maybe...

Ok, first things first. Gotta get a backlog to work with. In order to do that, I need a good game concept. So that will be this weeks task. Some sort of game concept and the beginning of a backlog. And next week I'll plan on doing a release planning and start in on the fun.