Our team composition consists of  4 Artists, 2 Animators, 2 Programmers and 2 Designers. 

 

On my team, I serve the role of Producer & Animator. 

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

- Consistently track our progress

- Identify and resolve problems with development

- Resolve team conflict

- Maintain scope expectations

- Hold scrum & Deadline meetings

- Rig & Animate hostile enemies (Boss & Rat)

- Help with UI, Art & Animation implementation

- Design the structure of the boss fight

 

 

Timeline & Evaluation

 

The beginning of development was quite tricky, we had to be decisive and coherent. Sure the game was going to play similarly to games such as Dark Souls but what would our theme be, the situation the character is currently in and the arena they'd be combatting the boss in. These were all things that we felt were wise to come up with at the initial stages because it'd help our design maintain consistency. One of the main examples being that the boss is in a static location, this reduced scoping complications but we had to be aware of that, so we could create a scenario where it'd make sense for the boss to fit those conditions. 

 

Animation-wise, we'd agreed to the role of me animating the boss and my other animator doing the character. It's been a very interesting process as it requires tight nit communication with the programmers on how the Boss-AI will compute its attacks against the player. The AI and animations have to meld with each other well, or it results in the fighting being incredibly slow-paced and clunky resulting in lacklustre gameplay. One of the main things I've learnt from the project so far, gameplay-wise, is that you truly have to sell the combat in the game. If the boss is missing multiple attacks without intervention, not reacting to damage or being idle for too long, it breaks immersion. 

 

In terms of producing, the last couple of months have really been an eye opener to me on how important it is to consistently track progress. Scoping appropriately is an incredibly undervalued skillset and can lead to games not being polished in time. It's my job to make sure we're on track so that we can meet our deadlines. This involved me tracking our sprint goals every week, setting monthly deadlines and engaging with my team multiple times throughout the week to see how they're getting along with the project. It's genuinely been an exciting process, I'm keen on the following 3 months we have to improve the gameplay, add in all the art and polish the project as a whole.