Let’s start making something.
My goals
I started this project knowing that this will be the highlight of the team’s abilities and my own. We only have one chance to make that first impression when interviewing at a studio. And I wanted that first impression to be great. That impression will be this game. To help accomplish that, I set up a few goals for myself to ensure the team is engaged and happy with the development process. An engaged team is a more productive team. A more productive team makes a better product. A better product helps us all reach our goals of a career within the industry.
With that being said, here are the goals I set out for myself at the start of this project.
Display each team member's strength within the project so that they are able to use it as a portfolio piece.
Get buy-in from the team to record their own development.
Document all important conversations and artifacts.
1 on 1s with all team members.
Team builders, both on and off campus
HAVE FUN.
Of course, this list is not something I only do one time and call it done. I have trained myself to look at this list at the start of each week. I want to remind myself these are the goals I feel like are most important to reach the team’s aspirations. This is only the base, or the start if you will. There is still a lot more work to be done.
Team overview
The heart of the project. These individuals will be the ones taking an abstract concept and making it into something that anyone can play in a few short months. To do that, the team will need to be motivated and engaged with what they are contributing to the project. Too many times I have heard people complain that their current project is not allowing them to display what they do best. Consciously or not, their performance seems to fade, and the overall experience ends up not being enjoyable.
To help minimize the chance of that happening, I wanted to make it very clear to the team that I wanted this project to be a showpiece of their skills and abilities. I started our initial meeting conveying that message to the team. I wanted each member to feel like they were being heard. Then, when we started kicking around ideas for a game concept, we would have an idea of what each team member wanted to do, and we could steer our ideas in those directions.
The team - and the list of things they wanted to show off with this project
Spencer (design) - Level design, core mechanics, and audio
Alejandro (design) - Level design, audio, and narrative
Ryan (programming) - UI integration and use of his random level generator
Megan (art) - 2D character art and 3D modeling
Sierra (art) - 3D character modeling with a focus on monsters, realism, and some light environmental work
Abi (art) - Environmental art/models and animations
Brainstorming
We have now come to the bulk of what we needed to do on the first day. Let’s start thinking about the game we want to make and what ideas we want to explore. To help do this, we decided to do a group brainstorming session to get ideas, themes, scenes, and whatever else we had in our heads out. Once they were in the open, the team could talk about each item in more detail.
Because I knew I wanted to have a brainstorming session at some point, I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish during this brainstorming session. The list might look a little like instructions on how to conduct a brainstorming session, but I did not to forget anything important in the moment.
Set time limit to 20 mins
Define the purpose of the brainstorm before the meeting starts
Be very clear that there is no criticizing of ideas
No discussion of the ideas during the brainstorm
Be prepared to help generate ideas when flow generation is slowed
Be welcoming to unusual ideas
Involve EVERYONE
And man, 20 minutes is a long time. There were multiple times I had to help generate ideas by asking questions or reminding the team of who our target audience was. Below are the results of this 20-minute session.
So, what made the cut? The ideas we wanted to focus on and talk about in more detail were random levels, rain, creatures, blood, corrupted trees, FPS, violence and relics. We spent the next hour talking about how we could use these ideas to start framing out a basic combat loop. Plus, an overall feel for what the game was going to be. Below is our very first pass of core mechanics and the…roots…of our game.
And with that, we ended our first day of development on Crimson Herbicide. We had talked about a lot of ideas, and I needed to get them out of my head and onto some paper. I wanted to make sure the entire team was on the same page on what the game was and where it was going. You are able to download that word document here. Please keep in mind that this document was not intended to be used as a professional document. Just a place to store my thoughts.
Not too bad for half a day’s worth of work. Read on to the next post to learn about how our first week of production went.
