Final Thoughts

The semester is over, and the dust has settled. While our team will not be moving forwards to full production, what we crafted is amazing. Not just the game, but the team and friendships as well. We had our ups and downs, and in the end, we fell short, but as people and as game developers, we all grew so much.

We didn't have a great hand to begin with. We had no programmer or producer, so we had to split those roles up among ourselves, and overall things could have gone a lot worse. Natalie did things I never could have dreamed were possible without a programmer, Tim's spline tool allowed us to generate truly massive environment, and Jodie made the entire place look wonderful. Even I did a pretty good job with QA and production work, as well as the level itself.

However, where we fell apart, and what cost us the most time was in communication. There simply wasn't enough of it. We had daily scrum, and met up to work at least once a week, but it wasn't enough. People would say one thing, and everyone would interpret it differently, and we wouldn't realize it until things had gone off the rails. We would spend sometimes even weeks going back and forth on an issue before realizing everyone thought the same thing, it was just semantics that was different. Without all this wasted time, I think we could have actually made it through.

A lot of this is on me as the producer. I failed to realize the miss-communications until to late, and wasn't as definitive as I could be. I wouldn't step in and stop conversations, or insist we reach a decision until things had already gone on to long. I could have been much harder with due dates as well. If I had taken things more in hand and driven things harder, we may have gotten more done in a more timely manner.

But enough negative stuff. Let's go back to more positive manners; namely, how I've grown over the course of the semester.

As a game designer: As a designer, I've made massive progress in adapting to feedback. I've always had issues with not wanting to change the stuff I've made, but this semester I've had to let a lot of stuff go, from systems I thought I was cool to changing levels around because they simply weren't working. Adaptability is incredibly important in game design, and I feel I've really learned a lot about it this semester.

The other key thing I learned about was opening up to and bonding with others. I had a lot of personal stuff going wrong this semester, and once I opened up to the team, learned to trust them, things became much easier. Additionally, we started just hanging out as friends towards the end, and I think it really improved our team dynamic. We could laugh and joke about things not related to the game. Truly, the best development team is one that consists of friends.

I've also learned some leadership and production skills, both with leading QA and the team in general that will provide useful in my future career.

All in all, I had a great time, made some friends, and me and my team created a great experience. And I can't really ask for a whole lot else.