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Annotated Games: Version 0.9, 4 playersThis game was played during the game testing of Find the Bug! Project. The players pursued different paths towards the victory.
Each round has a summary table of actions, current project members and current achievement. Parentheses indicates busy and capital letters indicates senior. The projects are coded with colors for risk (green=1, light green=2, yellow=3, orange=4, red=5), numbers for remaining cubes (5/10=5 development cubes and 10 test cubes) and letters for budgets (T=time, c=cost 4, Q=quality). Steering groups are coded with letters for priorities (T=time, c=cost 4, Q=quality) and numbered circles for the players' seats. Round 1
Player 1-3 start with "productive" project members, keeping all options open, while player 4 goes all in on the recruiter strategy with an early recruiter. Round 2
Player 4 reports status to get to use her recruiter as soon as possible but may not place any steering group disc since she has no achievement cubes (yet). Player 1 and 2 stick to their flexible openings while player 3 commits to the trainer strategy with an early trainer. Round 3
Player 3 reports status without placing any steering group disc to get to use her trainer as soon as possible. Player 4, seeing that there may be too many developers in the game, decides to recruit two testers. Player 1 also reports status without placing any steering group disc. Player 2 goes all in on development by recruiting a development lead. Round 4
Player 2 reports status without placing any steering group disc but will be able to lead her two developers next round and start accumulating achievement cubes. Player 3 uses her trainer to train and keep idle her inachievementd tester. Player 4 reports status a second time without placing any steering group disc. She's still focused on building her team first. Player 1 is the first to assign a member to a project. She chooses the low risk project A3. Round 5
Player 1 assigns a second project member, a tester, to project A3 and now has two achievement project members. Player 2 uses her development lead to assign both her testers to project A3. The lead takes 1 achievement herself and also adds 1 less the time budget. Player 3 uses her senior tester to take 2 test cubes at the cost of only adding 1 to the cost budget. Player 4 keeps building up her project team by recruiting a senior trainer. Round 6
In the 6th round, all players except player 3 (who recruits a developer) report status. Player 4, who doesn't have any achievement yet, doesn't get to place any seats at steering groups but player 1 and 2 do since they now have achievement cubes and place the first steering group discs in the game. Player 1 adds a seat to steering groups with low time priority and player 2 a seat to a steering group with high cost priority. Round 7
Player 3 recruits a second developer (with the idea of training them in one round with her senior trainer) and player uses her senior recruiter to recruit a senior test lead. Meanwhile, player 1 and player 2 take the last development cubes from project A3. Round 8
Player 2 starts building a senior development team by training one of her developers. Player 3 reports status and places her first steering group disc at a steering group with time and quality priorities. Player 4 uses her senior trainer to train her two testers. Finally, player 1 tests project A2 and now has 4 cubes from 2 different projects. Round 9
Player 1 reports status and places a second disc at the same steering group. It's now only one disc away from a go/nogo meeting. Player 2 and 3 both train project members. The former will soon have a senior development team while the latter now has three senior project members. Player 4 has a senior test team and now repors status, still without placing any steering group disc. Round 10
Player 4 finally has her senior test team ready but realizes that it does not have anything to test so instead of taking on her first project, she recruits an offshore developer for more flexibility. Player 1 has enough achievement cubes on project members to form a devops team while player 2 reports status to get his senior development team ready. Since she expects to have relatively more cost cubes than the other players. Player 3 already has senior developers ready and assigns one of them to project A1. Round 11
Player 3 assigns her senior integration developers to project A2 and A1. In this way, she can use the cost budget from project A2 to get a time cube from project A1, where there is plenty of time budget left. Player 4 takes on her first project by assigning her senior test lead and two testers to the same project, A1. She also used her offshore developer to modify the task. In total, she uses 2 time chits and 1 cost chits to take 3 quality chits and 1 cost chit. Player 1 reports status and finally manages to fill a steering group. She chooses her only project, A3, and with only her discs around it, the result is a go. 3 test cubes were removed from the project, all in the first row (box 1-3). For the first row, a bug card with 2 bugs is drawn (box 2 and 3), and for the second row, bug cards with 4 and 3 bugs are drawn and the latter kept (box 2, 4 and 5). This means that 3 bugs remain untested, giving a quality of 7. The quality budget is 6 (+1), as is both the time budget and the cost budget (4 of 5 time chits and 1 of 2 cost chits placed). Adding 1 to time and cost thanks to the good quality, time and cost cubes are worth 2 EP each and quality cubes 1 EP each. The steering group multiplies time by 1, cost by 2 and quality by 3. This gives player 1 14 EP, player 2 10 EP and player 3 5 EP. Finally, the adjacent projects A2 and B3 get a lower risk. Player 2 delays the training of her junior developer to put her full development team on project A1, anticipating it to get a go soon and taking advantage of the remaining time budget. This does exceed the cost budget but she hopes that this will be compensated by a good quality. Round 12
Player 2 decides to report status to get to use her senior development team as soon as possible. She places her disc at a steering group prioritizing time and cost. Player 3 assigns her senior tester to project A2 and with that she also claim a program goal (three projects in a column), earning her 3 EP. Player 4 reports status and places her first steering group disc next to quality prioritizing steering group cards. Player 1 user her newly formed devops team to test and develop project A2, using up the last of the cost budget. Round 13
Player 1 reports status to turn her devops team idle again. She fills the last seat at a time prioritizing steering group and gambles by proposing project A2, although 2 development cubes remain on it. The other player in the steering group, player 2, has no interest in this project but player 1 wins thanks to breaking ties. All the testing cubes in the first and second columns have been removed and fortunately this is where the only bugs are found. The remaining 2 development cubes equal to 4 bugs but the quality of 6 still exceeds the budget by 2. This means that the time and the cost budgets get a quality bonus of +1 so time ends up on +2 (1 time chit left) and cost on +1 (no time chits left). The steering group multiplies time by 1, cost by 3 and quality by 2. This gives player 1 9 EP and player 3 10 EP. (Player 3 is still not happy, since she had hoped to earn more for her time cubes from the project.) Finally, the adjacent projects A1 and B2 get a lower risk. Player 2 assigns her new senior development team to the risk project C3, using 1 time chit and 2 cost chits to take 3 time cubes and 1 quality cube. Player 3 reports status and joins player 2 at the time and quality prioritizing steering group. Player 4 lets her senior team test player 2's development work at project C3 but this time she does not use her offshore developer to modify anything. The result is 1 time chit and 2 cost chits to take 3 quality chits and 1 time chit. However, this exceeds the time budget by 1. Round 14
Player 4 reports status and keeps focusing on steering groups prioritizing quality. while player 1 assigns her devops team to project C2. Player 2 also reports status but think it's too early to have a go meeting for "her" project C3 so she starts filling another time prioritizing steering group. Player 3 joins her and assigns her senior developer to project C2, spending 1 cost chit for 2 time cubes. Round 15
Player 3 assigns her integration developer to projects A1 and C2, using the last of the A1 cost budget. Player 4 again assigns her test team to project C3, although this brings the cost budget down to -1 and the time budget down to -2. Will the quality be enough to compensate for this? Player 1 reports status while player 2 assigns her development team to project C2, using 1 time chit and 2 cost chits to take 3 time cubes and 1 quality cube. Round 16
Player 2, seeing that "her" project is way over the time budget, decides to take a time chit. Player 3 assigns another member, a senior tester this time, to the other high risk project C2. Player 4 reports status and places another steering group disc near quality prioritizing steering groups. Player 1 goes for the program goal A2-B2-C2 by assigning her devops team to project B2, earning her 3 EP. Round 17
Player 1's devops team will retire next time she reports status so she recruits a recruiter to get a new team up to speed as quickly as possible. Player 2 reports status for project C3 but first she spends her time chit to add 1 to the time budget. Player 1 votes no but player 4 votes yes so the project is approved and scored. With all test boxes covered except the last 2 undeveloped ones, the quality is 8 or +3 compared to the budget. Since time and cost improve with half the quality, they go from -1 to +1. With the additional +1 from the higher risk, the result is quality +4, time +2 and cost +2 before the steering group multipliers and quality +8, time +6 and cost +2 afterwards. This gives player 2 8+(3x6)=26 EP and player (6x4)+(2x6)=36 EP. Player 3 also reports status but since "her" only remaining project C2 needs more work, she places her steering group disc at another time prioritizing steering group. Finally player 4 assigns her test team to project C2 and using her offshore developer, earning 3 quality cubes and 1 cost cube (instead of 1 time cube) and adding 1 cost and 2 time to the budget (instead of 2 cost and 1 time). Round 18
Player 4 again reports status at a quality prioritizing steering group and also retires one of her testers, who now has more than six cubes. Player 1 also retires team members as her devops team now has more than twelve cubes. She places her steering group disc at cost prioritizing steering group as she expects to use more cost-effective team members next. Player 2 decides to go for the program goal A3-B3-C3 and develops project B3, earning her 3 EP. She also earns 3 time cubes and 1 quality cube and the project spends 2 cost and 1 time budget. Player 3 lets her integration developer completes the B3 development and also develops project B1, earning her 6 EP for the program goal A2-B1-B3-C2. Round 19
Seeing that she has no cost cubes from project A1, player 3 exceeds the cost budget to assign her senior tester there and earning 1 time cube and 1 cost cube. Player 4, expecting the game to end soon, uses her remaining senior tester to test project C2, earning 1 time and 1 quality cube and, thanks to the offshore developer, spending 1 time budget instead of 1 cost budget. Player 1 hurries to to recruit consultants but will she have time to use them given that player 2 may fill the 4th of the 5 steering groups that is necessary to end the game? The answer is yes, since player 2 doesn't think it's in her interest to close a project right now. Instead, she takes a seat at another time prioritizing steering group. Round 20
Player 2 still has all her members left in her team and develops project B3, earning her 3 EP. She earns 3 time cubes and 1 quality cube and the project spends 2 cost and 1 time budget. Player 3 reports status and fills a time prioritizing steering group to close project A1. 3 untested bugs are found, but the quality of 7 is still better than the quality budget of 5. That means that quality cubes are worth 2 x priority 2, time cubes are worth (0+1) x priority 3 and cost cubes are worth (-1+1) x priority 1. Player 3 earns 1 x 4 + 4 x 3 = 16 EP for 1 quality cube and 4 time cubes and player 4 earns 3 x 4 = 12 EP for 3 quality cubes and 1 cost cube. Player 4 may also fill a steering group but since "her" last project, C2, needs more development, she recruits 2 testers instead. Player 1 then challenges her by reporting status and placing her disc at the same group. Player 4 (and 2 and 3) reluctantly vote no and player 1 gets to place another disc there. The next round is likely to be the last one... Round 21
Player 1 assigns her consultant tester to project B2, hoping to get it ready for a go/nogo before it's too late. However, player 2 decides that it's in her interest to end the game now, fills a time prioritizing steering group and votes go for the completely untested project B3. Unfortunately it has 6 bugs so the quality (budget 7) is -3. Quality and cost budgets are thus worth nothing but time cubes (5 budget left) are still worth 2 EP each times the steering group priority of 3. Player 2 earns 18 EP for her 3 time cubes and player 3 earns 6 EP for her time cube. The game end has been triggered and player 3 uses her last turn assign her integration developer to projects B1 and C2, earning her 2 time cubes at the cost of 1 cost chit (paid by project C2). Finally player 4 reports status and gets a go from a previously filled steering group prioritizing quality. The almost completely tested project C2 has no undetected bugs so the quality budget of 8 awards 2 EP per quality cubes (times priority 3), 1 EP per time cube (times priority 2) and 1 EP per cost cube (times priority 1). Player 1 earns 6+2+1 for 1 of each cube, player 3 earns 6+10 for 1 quality cube and 5 time cubes, and player 4 earns 18+2+1 for 3 quality cubes, 1 time cube and 1 cost cube. Finally the last projects are scored without any priority. For project B2, 2 bugs remain undetected so the quality is -1 (quality budget 9) but time and cost cubes still earn 5 (7-2) and 1 (3-2) each. Player 1 earns 5+1=6 EP and player 2 earns 15 EP. For project B1, 7 bugs remain undetected (including the 6 bugs in the undeveloped parts) so the quality is -5 (quality budget 8) so no cubes are worth anything. The same goes for project C1 with 5 undetected bugs and quality -4 (quality budget 9). Adding 1 EP per steering group disc, player 2 won with 78 EP, player 3 and 4 were close behind with 67 and 74 EP respectively while player 1 fell behind with only 49 EP. Three important conclusions were drawn from the game. First, given the length of the game, player 1 should have recruited a coach and perhaps formed a second team to be prepared when members started leaving the project. Second, in spite of the long game, players with "senior strategies" didn't have to worry about members leaving the team. Third, and related to the second conclusion, the "senior weight" consumed cost budgets and weakened "junior strategies", partly because cost budgets became less valuable and partly because more time prioritizing steering groups were filled. The simple solution was to have senior members leaving the project earlier to balance the strategies and shake things up towards the end of the game. This was tested in the next test game. |
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