Monday
This week, I’ll be looking at creating drawings of the other angles of the character, Eta, and possibly looking into creating the assets.
We had a guest lecture in the morning covering game production and management from Paul MacGillivray. He covered the role of a producer, determining the scale of the project and how much time they would take, as well as creating a roadmap.
A Game producer manages:
- Cost (How much money it takes to make the game)
- Quality (How much polished the game is)
- Time (How much time is given to make the game)
- Scope (How much areas of content can you make with the time you have)
Break down work into Deliverables and Tasks:
- Once you have the scope you can break tasks down into Deliverables
- Tasks are the steps you take to achieve the Deliverables
- Deliverable = creating a new character
- Tasks include: Creating concept art, 3D sculpting characters, Animate/rig models, and adding models to the game engine
Exercise 1 – We made deliverables based on food items/meals as analogy of an actual deliverable.
- Deliverable 1 – Make fried eggs
- Task 1 – Take egg out of carton
- Task 2 – Crack egg into pan
- Task 3 – Fry on one side until golden and crispy
Some tips:
- Avoid getting too granular
- No tasks for work less than one hours
- Deliverables are complete within a release (a few months), Tasks are completed in a sprint (usually two weeks)
- Good rule is one task per person
Time estimating
- Think about how long you need to complete each task
- If you don’t have an estimate, you’ll have to give your best guestimate
- Estimate more time than you think
- Estimates are usually in days
- Adding up all of your estimates makes up project time
Exercise 2 – add time estimates to the tasks
Making fried eggs
- Estimate: 10 minutes
- How to make it faster: Turn up the heat
Sausage
- Estimate: 12 minutes
- How to make it faster: Turn up the heat
Dependencies
- Example: Creating a character
Concept art is required before 3D model
Exercise 3 – Create a roadmap for your feature
- Deliverable = Full character model and concept art showcasing the character
- Priority 1 = Complete concept art for the character
- Priority 2 = Make a 3D model for the character
- Priority 3 – Make a rig for the character
Thursday
In Thursday’s session, we 1) dealt with user demographics and 2) did a crisis project management plan for if things go south (in our personal lives).
- In the Kinetic Panic GDD, there were two audiences identified: families and intermediate to hardcore gamer. For families, the statement would be “As a family, we want a game with fun and colourful characters for everyone to enjoy.” For intermediate gamers, the statement was “As an intermediate gamer, I want a fun challenge to test my limits and conquer the leader board.”
I found it important that we know each demographic that our game targets so that we can address said needs for each demographic.
2. Crisis project management meant that we all had a backup plan if things didn’t go to plan. Sophie told us to note down any risks to our project, my main two would be Family (e.g if something comes up) and poor physical and mental health. After we recognised our risks, we listed what work we would be able to do if said situations came up, like the absolute minimum. I listed 3D/2D art only as that is my primary focus anyways.
This was really good for Sophie to highlight as most of us hadn’t thought of this during the term.
Lastly, before the session ended, she gave us 2 slogans to keep in mind when doing work. We all have our limits as game designers, and it’s important to know when you cannot do anymore work.
FIIO – F*ck it, I’m out (I cannot do this anymore, my current work is all I can do)
FITNE – F*ck it, near enough (This is the closest I can do to the overall goal, I did my best)
I think these two phrases are something we should all keep in mind when creating our games now and in the future.
Friday
- We had a team meeting, but only Sam and I could turn up so I decided to just play test and give Sam some feedback for the game. Other than that, I also added what I needed to do into our group’s Jira. This week was one that had a lot of planning but I definitely know what I’m doing now!
My first playtest
I cannot embed the link yet so click here to see the playtest:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1csmO5tmHJMxljYZUB–wjp6dIDDyPpBA/view?usp=sharing
Sam’s Prototype was really fun to play and well-made, but I had a few points on how to improve it in the discord channel. I gave some of my feedback on what I wanted to see in the next builds, but after today, I am confident that Sam has all the programming under his belt. I’m excited to see how the future builds will be like.