Cathrine was good at her job. In fact, she would say that she was excellent at her job. However, she wasn't doing so well at the moment.

She took pride in her work as one of the best Project Managers at Weird World Computing. The company was known for its high standards and beautiful worlds. The work they had done in Fully Immersive Virtual Reality was groundbreaking. This beauty stemmed from the innovative technique that Weird World Computing used. They made worlds from the ground up, all thanks to the unique AI world generation that would simulate years upon years of world history, allowing things to be reasonably consistent.

Of course, since the game used AI to generate the world, the AI would often get stuck in loops or overlook bugs. It mainly had a hard time identifying bugs that made logical sense to be part of the world but didn't fit the theme of the world. A couple of developers, including Jasper Lauritsen and Martin Husum, had been dedicated to helping solve these problems. Cathrine had been assigned to be the project manager for their newest project.

There was a slight problem. The development team was located in Denmark.

"I might need you to explain this to me again. What was your solution to the AI generative problem?" Cathrine asked, looking at the screen a bit more intently.

Jasper, the team leader, spoke up. He was a slender man with long auburn hair tied into a bun, highlighting his slightly receding hairline. His brown eyes stared at the screen for a moment as he touched his nose to adjust some glasses that he wasn't wearing.

Jasper's voice quickly answered through Cathrine's speakers despite them being on the other side of the world. "I was saying that you know the generative problem as well as we do. If we let the AI run for long periods of time, more of the training material starts to shine through. This often results in having to roll back, or remove elements, to avoid any legal trouble since our AI model has apparently been trained on our competitor's data."

Martin, a massive man who barely fit in the webcam frame, nodded. He looked like someone who had lived a rough life, with short, buzz-cut black hair and a beard that reached just below his chest. It was hard to determine if he was big because of muscle or if he just enjoyed food. He didn't speak much but was apparently very skilled at some of the more primitive forms of coding.

"Jasper here made a system for us. We go into the game as gods and fix problems. The AI can then build on our actions, allowing it to solve problems that we hadn't even intended to fix."

Cathrine took a deep breath. She knew that was the case, but there was one element she didn't get. "Why aren't you just giving yourself unlimited resources? Isn't that easier? You can still seed the game with chaos."

Jasper nodded slowly at hearing this. "That is true, and while that would make things more efficient, the reason for us going into the game like this is three-fold. The first and major reason is that we are trying to gamify our work. If we treat it as a game instead of a job, we are willing to pull longer hours and not be as burned out. We actually want to do it this way instead of just going in and fixing everything. This leads us to the second reason. If we just fixed everything all the time, instead of being limited to what we can fix, the history of the world would be that every 100 years, the gods would pop into the world and fix everyone's problems. Limited resources and roadblocks ensure an enjoyable experience, as well as a diverse history of the world. The last reason for doing it this way is to ensure that our solutions are diverse. If we were all-powerful, we would fall into the same rhythm for fixing almost any problem. Using the same tools again and again."

Cathrine had repeatedly considered interrupting Jasper to ask questions, but she wasn't here to micromanage the team. If they believed that they could get things done at their current speed, then that was fine.

"I trust you to do what is best, but I don't think I have to remind you that this deadline has gotten a lot tighter. You have a little over a year to complete an entire game at this point, not just develop the world. Have you thought about how this might impact your workflow?" Cathrine said, wanting to hear if the people on the project had any thoughts.

Jasper cleared his throat, but Martin answered before he could. "No. We have not."

Jasper leaned out of the frame of his own webcam and came into the frame on Martin's webcam, where he lightly smacked the massive man on the arm. Cathrine raised an eyebrow, wondering if physical punishment was a normal part of Jasper's methods as a team leader.

"That is to say," Jasper picked up where Martin had left off, as he leaned back. "We have not yet gotten a detailed view of what resources will be available. As such, we have not planned to change our workflow to encompass unknown elements. When they are available, we will work them into our normal flow."

Cathrine had to admit that it made sense, though. Unfortunately, Weird World Computing was a massive international corporation. As such, things that made sense were often considered bad practice.

"I will agree that you cannot plan for resources you are not aware of, but the requirements for you have changed. You have gone from an operational department to a department attached to a project. That means that management has some requirements that you need to follow. For one, you have never fulfilled an Employee Engagement Survey." Cathrine noted, looking at the paperwork she had been studying for this meeting.

Jasper felt his mouth go dry. "I know... the Employee Engagement Survey is taken by members of a team and then handed to the team lead. Since Martin is the only member of the team, I would be able to determine what he answered. So we decided not to take it."

Jasper's face spoke volumes, and Cathrine recognized the unspoken question on his lips. "Did this mean he would have to fill out these kinds of surveys just to say they had done it?"

Cathrine nodded along. "I know. My point is that this project is very unorthodox, and some regulations have changed since you changed your status in the company. I will do my best to try and coordinate things so they aren't as disruptive, but I also need to be able to fire off some buzzwords to the stakeholders. What is your current programming methodology?"

Jasper cleared his throat. "Uhm, I don't think we have thought of it as a methodology at this point, but if I had to describe it, I would say the Waterfall method."

Cathrine smiled. "Great! That means there is room for improvement. Let us see if we can move you guys to Extreme Programming by the time we are done with this meeting. That would really show the stakeholders that we are seeing change."

They spent an hour discussing how the workflow for the project should be, and Jasper was pleasantly surprised. Extreme Programming was known for being notoriously impractical. However, the more they talked, the more sense it made to do it this way. He had often looked down on the methodology since it required the programmer to write tests for their code before writing the code, which had always felt out of place. However, by tweaking the AI, he could have it write tests based on what it wished to achieve. There were other elements as well, much of which required some major shifts in workflow, but nothing impossible.

Cathrine slowly started to wrap up the meeting. "Now, I will do my best to let you code this game as best as possible, but you will need to perform some tasks that might not make much sense. For one, whenever a project like this starts, it needs a security review. Furthermore, I know that PR and communications have asked to get some insight into this project. Then we have Marketing, but I think I can handle those guys. Distribution usually likes to talk with you, too, but I can definitely handle that. For now, you just need to figure out what kind of game you want to make. Give me a plan for the game by the end of the month, and I will set you up with a writer to help you write an overarching story. So a schedule for you guys would look something like this: The first week, you have meetings and code. Second week, the game iterates and at the start of the third, you do a deep dive as your avatars, and you evaluate?"

Martin nodded at this but didn't say anything. Jasper had spaced out a little, the discussion making his brain feel like it was made from jelly.

"I am thinking the avatar dive will be about two days. That will allow me to allocate you a special resource as well. I have an intern who has literally been begging to be part of your team. Are you okay with working with Riez? Just to be clear, she has tried to break into the system several times over the last month. She is very passionate, so I would highly recommend you take her on board." Cathrine said with a slight wince to her voice.

Jasper smiled. Riez had been a very helpful intern during their visit to the States. She had gotten a taste of the game and instantly wanted access to the demo build, but she was denied access since she wasn't associated with the project.

"Riez would be great. I will probably drag my wife into this as well, since she has already been part of the world development. I am sure that we can figure something out with her having a couple of days off every month."

Cathrine nodded at this and then said her goodbyes after outlining what action points had been agreed on during the meeting. She left the developers to their work.