Development Log | Cycle 1 | 2022

Welcome to the first development update for Galaxsi Studios. This blog post covers what I have been doing in the last development cycle for Galaxsi Studios. This may include things I may have completed, progress on projects, development processes, and more. This post will be released after the Cycle Presentation where you can watch live/archive on Galaxsi Studios Youtube & Twitch Channel.

Cycle & Sprints

Since this is the first development update I am doing, I want to take a moment to explain what I mean by Cycle & Sprints. I want to make a further blog post to detail this in a bit more info so there is a blog post planned for the “Galaxsi Studios Cycle.” I use the term cycle when I refer to the group of sprints that I work on. A SPRINT, taking from the Agile Development process is a short, time boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work which make up the heart of the development process. Obviously since I am working on my own, the tasks in a sprint are for me only. In future, if I am working with multiple people, the task number per sprint will increase. Each sprint focues on 1 project that I work on which takes a list of tasks. At the end of a cycle, I will plan a development update blog & stream (later uploaded to youtube) as well as list of goals I want to achive within the next cycle. I will also use extra time for professional development & working on other things that may have not been originally planned.

The Cycle Of Sprints

1 Cycle is equal to 4 weeks worth of work split among 3-4 projects I work on. This projects include:

Galaxsi Studios – General Jobs such as documentation, blog updates, development updates, update video, etc.
Galaxsi Bot – My software development project which assists me with my Twitch.
Matgalaxsi – My Twitch/Youtube Content
Game Design Project – Focuses on any game I am working on.

Since Galaxsi Bot is my primary project, I work on that in 2 weeks of the cycle. Usually I will dedicate 1 week to working on a major update/collection of minor updates while the other week, I will work on minor updates & documentation as well as experiment with tasks/techniques that the project might benefit from. For example, I used some time in my first sprint of Galaxsi Bot to work on integrating it into Electron (more on that later).

In addition, my Galaxsi Studios week is usually as well used as my “recovery” week. THis is where I will work on anything related to all projects, documentation, catch-up on whats going on and get up to speed with what I need to.

Sprint Breakdown

A sprint can usually be broken down into multiple parts: Plan, Action, Review & Release (I like to call it PARR). Obviously, this is taken from an agile development cycle but more so simplified so I can have a straight forward working process. I will start a sprint by planning what needs to be done in a sprint. This includes any important tasks that need to be completed soon, urgent bugs that may need to be fixed and how exactly I may complete certain task. This stage will roughly last around about 2 hours within a cycle. Then I will move into my “Action” phase which is the time I use to work on the tasks I set out in the planning stage. Depending on the complexion or number of tasks, this stage will roughly take as long as it needs too but for the first cycle, it lasted between 3 & 5 hours. Then I will move into the Review stage which basically takes all the task (on a different day I worked on them) and see if anything else needs to be (and of course if its working as intended). Sometimes, if a new public feature needs to be tested, I may ask for some help in relation to make sure my testing is sasifactory. This stage last at least an hour in each sprint. And finally, release which is where I work on a release for the current working sprint and release it for public consumption. Since I have started using this, I have noticed that my development process has become a bit more streamlined than it used tobe

I have gone through my process, so now, lets move on to the General Update! From now on, the development updates will not include that beginning part. I will create a further page to detail of a rough idea of what each cycle/sprint looks like!

GENERAL UPDATE

To help me with the work process, I have start utilising some free to use tools to keep track of what needs to be done. In my development updates, I will go through any new pieces of software I am using.

Confluence

Confluence is a web-based wiki usually used in corporate developed by Atlassian. I use it to store my doucmentats on at the moment that may be referred back to at a later date. I have been using this tool to create templates of documents that I refer back to later. I have created templates in relation to my streaming & sprint planning. These act a guide for me to stay in so I don’t off course too much. In addition, in the future, it will act as a guide for people who join the staff team for Galaxsi Studios later down the track but also a point for me to reference things that I do. For example, I write down my processes and my ideas so that way I have a knowledge base to keep.

If you are interested in using confluence, you can find it with the Atlassian package at https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence. Some free alternatives include Google Docs & Microsoft Office if you want to keep your documentation together.

Jira

Jira is a task project manager which allows me to keep track of each issue/idea/function that I would like to work on. In addition, I am able to know what my goals for the next sprint. I utilise the Kanban board similar to what Asana & Trello use. But in addition, I have also got a backlog which I am able to pull from and work on tasks that need to be completed.

Here is this week’s sprint.

If you are interested in using jira, you can find it with the Atlassian package at https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira. Some free alternatives include Asana & Trello which use a kanban system and have a sort of backlog.

Website Update

Galaxsi Bot Landing Page

So I was able to create a landing page for the Galaxsi Bot project. This page is to serve as a place where all the main details for Galaxsi Bot are showed. My aim for these pages is to have at least for each project which has some detail on what the project is, what are the benefits & features of that project and a small overview of what is planned for it in the future.

Galaxsi Bot Development Log

I also had a bit of time to setup the Galaxsi Bot Development log which will have release logs of when I do a deployment of the code. I will be doing the first one of these on April 1st.

Galaxsi Bot – Token Race

I made some changes to the draw system. Two key differences that I would like to note is a change to how the deck is generated and what cards are now excluded to certain rarities as well as some minor moderation updates.

Penalty & Worthless Tiers now cannot spawn as High Rarity

During the deck spawn code, I made a change if a tier with a value equal to or lower than 0, then it is impossible for it to spawn as a Ghost or Starlight Rare. This is going to make a lot of people happy as I am aware that people are constantly getting frustrated with the fact they are able to pull one of the two rarities only for it to punish them badly or not get anything at all. That is not the aim of this game and I want to fix that starting April. Therefore, All Ojamas and Giant Germs can no longer be Ghost/Starlight rares.

Moderation Update

In another update to the draw game, Moderators will now have the ability to spawn a Ghost Rare into the deck by typing !duel-ghost which will allow ghost rares to spawn. This way, I don’t have to be the one doing it all the time when I am in the middle of a game or can’t get to the top console of the game.

First Look at the Galaxsi Bot UI

In this section, I am going to talk about what I have been working on in relation to the Galaxsi Bot UI. At the start of this mini-project, I have been working on moving tools that I used in the original version of it to this and having an easy to use interface. This will detail some things that I have worked on in the past but was able to integrate into an Angular Framework easily. Yes, you heard that right, I am using Angular to work on this version of the Galaxsi Bot UI.

Command Manager

The first thing I worked on was putting together a command manager so that I am able to add commands easily to my bot. At the moment, its very basic but I am planning to add ways where I change the type of command where I can store counts and also a formatting syntax where I can have global variables like if I want to have social media links, etc. Discord especially can get a bit messy! The only thing I would change about it is having the ability to automatically reload commands when the command list is updated. (Something to come I suppose?)

Schedule Maker

So basically, to create my schedule, I have created a schedule maker which allows me to split up my week into different streams as well as different segments on each of the streams. In the next cycle, I plan to add a “Post to Discord” & “Post to Twitch” functions so I am able to update them simultaneously and have a consistancy between both my Twitch Channel & Discord.

Electron Integration

Finally, this last part wasn’t actually planned for this month but I took some time to have a look at Electron which is a framework that utilises the Chromium browser and wraps any javascript based web apps into its own exe program. After a couple of days of investigating and research, I was able to make the app work as its own stand alone program which I plan to do once I am well into development. The executable version of this is going to be a small stepping stone but will be one I use when I want to release a product as its own program. One day, I do plan to release a program where users can customize their own bot but also keep it on their own computer. Early stages but really exciting!

Matgalaxsi Updates

100 Subscribers!

100 Subscribers is a big milestone! We now are able to get a custom url link which can help people find us very quickly! But a big thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the youtube channel, I hope to continue working on the youtube channel and continue to grow as I can. There is something I want to note, and actually this is probably a little more obvious for some of you, I seem to have gained an influx of subscribers when I started doing more shorts videos. One of my first shorts, which was only me summoning a monster in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has clocked in 11K views which for a youtube channel that had around 70 subscribers, that is pretty amazing.

Q&A Video

So my current project is working on a Youtube Video which is my 100 Subscriber Celebration and its a Q&A Video. You can find the shorts video announcing it on the youtube channel. Any questions that are within the PG parameters are welcome and encouraged.

Want to ask me a question? Submit it via this google form: https://forms.gle/GJ1HRViBLUqy8Qr99. I will only be answering questions that are PG rated and won’t be answering anything above that.

2022 – Cycle 2 – What’s Next?

In this part, I will be going over what will be in the next cycle and any adjustments to the cycle to priorize bigger tasks that need to be completed urgently. Luckly, in this spirnt, we will be keeping the same cycle as the first one. In addition, the following will be focusing on the following:

Galaxsi Studios General

More Information on the Galaxsi Bot landing page.
New Developer log for Galaxsi Bot.
More Information on the Galaxsi Bot landing page.

Galaxsi Bot

Working on a new game for the chat.
UI OBS Integration.
GalaxsiBot.com website sketch ups.

Matgalaxsi

Q&A Video
Event Stream Planning.

Development Update – Cycle 1 – 2022

Published by Mat on 16/03/202216/03/2022

Development Log | Cycle 1 | 2022

Cycle & Sprints

The Cycle Of Sprints

Sprint Breakdown