XPBLOG: Learning from others – 3/19/21

Learning from others

Andrew Beaulieu

MassDiGI’s Experience Program (XP) has passed its midway point and the teams are buckling in for the final stretch towards releasing their games. I wanted to give perspective on why meeting new people and working on projects with them is a fantastic opportunity, and how it allows everyone involved to grow as developers.

I am a part of Team Cake, a group of seven people who have never met before, given the task of developing a completed mobile game in eleven weeks. Every person on the team came in with a strong set of skills, yet each of us has grown in new and exciting ways by learning from one another. This growth not only enables us to make our game better, but also gives us experience that we can take forward to our future projects.

The classroom can teach basic skills, and online resources are an incredible tool, but the greatest learning opportunity comes from the people you work with. Being able to absorb all the lessons that your colleagues have learned in a fraction of the time is an amazing benefit of working on a team. Working with the incredibly skilled people here at the XP program has given me the experience of working on dozens of different games, all in less than three months.

In the coming weeks Team Cake, as well as Team Pie and Team Custard, will be finalizing our ideas and releasing our games. It will be a bittersweet moment, and one that will be upon us far too quickly. My advice to my peers at XP and to everyone interested in improving themselves is to squeeze out every drop of knowledge you can from those around you, and not to be shy about spreading your own skills and ideas to others.