But on the high-level — my full-time job is interaction design. Throughout my career I used JavaScript a lot for building interactive design prototypes and it’s the only language I know, so when I had the idea for Yare.io (heavily inspired by MIT’s Battle Code), vanilla JavaScript (and Node for server) was the only thing I could use (didn’t know any libraries or frameworks)
The project was really just a “problem” to be solved. Use JavaScript to move basic geometric shapes on a canvas in a 1 versus 1 battle. It needed to have a UI, rendering of a game state, authentication, event queue, basic ruleset, … None of this really required any tracker or rigorous process. I know what needs to be done, because I’m literally sitting in front it, seeing what needs to be done. It didn’t need a “plan”, because it didn’t matter when each piece of the puzzle was made. Just, whatever I was in the mood for that day.
I think the principle of simplicity (as cliche as it sounds) – trying to keep everything (especially the foundations) as basic as possible – was really the main thing that allowed me to finish the game.
I don't think I could enjoy it as much as I did with some scrum method, brainstorming bullshit, or anything reminding me of work.
No real process, no plan, no scrum method, not even a trello board to track progress and todos. Personally, I enjoyed the "fun" of it being very spontaneous, yet still passionate. I didn't write to-dos and tasks to be done, because there is always something to be done. And intuitively you feel what's important and what's not. I also didn't want it to "feel" like work.
For context - the game took me about 6 months to create: https://yare.io