Well, this day was both fantastic and a little disappointing. We were all sitting down, waiting for our new client to be announced. It turns out that we don't have a new client and the prototypes this time are open ended.
The entire cohort can do whatever we want game-wise as long as the development is done in the Unity engine. Also, this round will have just three teams with one artist on each and multiple producers for the first time. Oh and producers can't be involved in any part of the game design.
That last part cut me kind of deep. This is the ultimate prototype - big teams and an open invitation to do whatever we want and I can't design. Meh, it could be worse I guess.
Anyways, I did manage to get a fantastic team and co-producer in Zeph. We have been good friends throughout this semester so it will be interesting to see how we work together on a team. In order to not step on each others toes during development, I proposed that Zeph be the scrum master while I facilitate and document the feature list and designs. So that's what we are going to do.
As our team's brainstorming kicked off, I began helping the group workshop their ideas. After about an hour we had a pretty solid razor and slogan statement for our idea. The razor was "Shouts from Skyrim meets Ricochet." I thought it was a pretty original razor statement and was impressed with the team's ability to rally around an idea so fast. After the ideas session came to a close, I told everyone that we are going to adhere to the very process that worked so well for my team last time - no writing code until the following Monday. Seeing as though some of the programmers were burnt out from the last project, this was welcomed by all involved.
I'm a little nervous about what my role on the team is going to be like once the design is a lock for this game but I'm going to find a way to help them out to the best of my ability. Perhaps that can also be in the form of a process...hmmm. The wheels are turning, I must pursue this idea.
Until next time,
Andrew
I Can't Design This Time
