Cricket Manager - Devlog Entry #2
It’s been almost a year since I last updated you on the progress of Cricket Manager. A lot of time has passed, and the progress hasn’t been as fast as I would have liked. However, I’m excited to share with you the latest developments and where we stand today. The last few months have been extremely frustrating, with a lot of my ideas and experiments not yielding the desired results. But I’ve learned a lot from these setbacks and am more determined than ever to make Cricket Manager a reality.
What have I learned?
One of the key lessons I’ve learned over the past year is the importance of setting realistic goals and expectations. When I started working on Cricket Manager, I had grand visions of creating a fully-fledged cricket simulation game with all the bells and whistles. However, as I delved deeper into the development process, I realized that my initial scope was too ambitious for a solo developer like myself. Moreover I was trying to build a game that was too complex and feature-rich for my first project. I had also not budgeted enough time for learning new technologies and experimenting with different approaches. All these meant the features built were a hotchpotch of different technologies and approaches, leading to a lot of technical debt and bugs. Nothing worked in coherence and a lot of time was spent in debugging and fixing issues.
The importance of planning
Another important lesson I’ve learned is the importance of planning and breaking down tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. When I started working on Cricket Manager, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to build, but I didn’t have a clear roadmap or timeline. This led to a lot of wasted time and effort as I jumped from one task to another without a clear direction. I also didn’t prioritize tasks properly, which meant that I spent a lot of time on low-priority features while neglecting critical ones.
This effort has given me a new perspective on Software Engineering in general and I have started to appreciate the hard work that Project Managers and Software Architects put in to make a project successful. This has also made me realize that I need to be more disciplined and organized in my approach to development.
Starting with a blank canvas
Given the technical debt and bugs in the current codebase, I’ve decided to start from scratch and build Cricket Manager using a more structured and disciplined approach. I’ve spent the last few days planning out the game mechanics, features, and architecture, and I’m confident that this time around, I’ll be able to build a more robust and scalable game.
Also I am making a significant commitment to mysef to document my progress and learnings in this devlog series. I hope that by sharing my experiences with you, I can not only hold myself accountable but also provide valuable insights to other developers who may be facing similar challenges. As a result I will be updating this devlog series more frequently and will be sharing my progress and learnings with you.
What’s next?
In the coming weeks, I’ll be focusing on building the core game mechanics and features of Cricket Manager. I’ll be using a more structured approach this time around, breaking down tasks into smaller, manageable chunks and prioritizing them based on their importance. I’ll also be experimenting with different technologies and approaches to see what works best for the game.
Please follow Cricket Manager on twitter/X to get the latest updates and insights into the development process.