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Booty
Roles:
Lead, Level, Systems, and Puzzle designer and scripter.
Duration:
02/2019-05/2019
Goal:
Create a complete game with a team
in 4 weeks.
Game Objective
Escape the sinking ship before you drowned!
Development Challenges
A major portion of the challenges were production and deadline related. There was so much back and forth between concept, 3D team, and myself. Then there were technical and learning challenges with Unreal's water physics volume, particles, lighting, file management, and personally scripting most of the project. It was a lot, but Booty has still been one of the most rewarding project experiences so far.
Inspiration
We wanted to create something super polished so everyone had worthy additions for their portfolios. We wanted a short Indiana Jones style escape with comical ghostly traps.
How I started
There was lots of brainstorming about what narrative to follow and build a game around. There were several mockups for what the player path and level layout would look like. There was so much input from the rest of the team about how believable or logical things were, and it came down to accepting that I just needed to make decisions and settle on them if we wanted to move forward.
Blueprint Communication
When I started this project I only knew how to communicate to other objects with a cast-to node. That was enough for this project but learned in the process about how to store objects as variables to easily reference them later in an event graph. This enabled me to easily trigger traps from a collision volume placed somewhere else in the level.
Learning Game Development Concepts
Most of my group experiences have me in decision making positions. I quickly got familiar with prioritizing tasks for the team when weighing the main objective with the deadline. Along with this, I allowed myself time to be a designer for the project, providing documents for the team, learning blueprints enough to get the job done with time for polish.
Apologies: Got a new mic and it was not working well for this video
Reality vs. Fantasy
We all wanted to create so many experiences within this project. There was so much passion, fire, and evolution that came from the team members. There was a week where we planned for the player to explore outside of the ship. We also had some backtracking in the player path but opted for a more direct shot to the escape hatch in favor of the 1 month deadline.
Small tribute to the team
You all worked incredibly hard, persevered, and delivered under pressure to satisfy feedback and meet milestones. 4 people delivered 35 game ready models in 4 weeks. They did an amazing job. Thank you!
My Achievements
I implemented all of the assets and made them function as expected for the game experience and story. I learned so much about production, team and project management, and the relationships between the 3D, concept art, and design departments. I saw a strong glimpse into what an indie studio would be like, where one person fills several roles, steps up and stays up to get things done. I also gained strong friendships with Anh and Ksenia who played a major role with conveying tasks to the concept and 3d teams, whose wisdom and design instincts supported my role as lead designer.
Disclaimer
I did not make any 3D models or concept art.
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