Wow, what an end to a development cycle. The prototype looks amazing, our demo really shines, and apparently I "killed it" with the pitch. I'm on cloud 9, at least I hope I am. And now onto the post-mortem!
So the guys and I got together after our pitch and such and began going through the development process on Shoshone and we could only think of two negatives throughout the entire process. First, it took about two weeks to lock down the correct size of our game map. This was unfortunate because, if this had been iterated on faster then perhaps we could have focused on including one other feature. Which leads me to the next thing, we did not reach 100% feature complete because our "pop-ups" for inventory and world items did not make the final build. It will make it in within the next week but it did not make the deadline for the presentation.
As far as everything else went, our design-focused development cycle really made this game what it is. By using the first week for design only and no coding whatsoever, it got the entire team motivated in one direction - unified by the love of our game idea. Hands down this is what led to our success. I can honestly say that my reinforcement of this process early is the best thing that I have done as both a designer and a producer. I learned a lot about team cohesion this way and the importance of inspiration for every member of your team.
I am incredibly proud of the work my team and I did on Shoshone and can't wait to hear back from the client regarding moving forward on the project. They definitely seemed interested in it at the end of the presentations which obviously made us all feel incredible. A total turnaround from the last clients. I could honestly have not asked for a better team: Chris, Triston, and Yang - thank you for your hard work and making this prototype the amazing piece of work that it is.
Onto the next one!
-Andrew
Shoshone Post Mortem
