POST-PROJECT

Reflection, Evaluation and a Summary of the overall project

I will be evaluating the project including what went well, a little on the team and where we can improve in future cases.

THE VERTICAL SLICE

I am very pleased with the outcome of the vertical slice as we fulfilled our expectations and met our team objectives. We managed to fulfill the project scope except for one minor detail in the UI however later I will establish the insignificance of this.

In terms of the vertical slice, we included every aspect of the full game as well as exceeding our expectations in terms of visuals, audio and gameplay! I am happy we were able to design a series of puzzle interactions which were successfully integrated in Unity and function correctly in the final outcome. Additionally, one of our biggest aims involved making the game appear attractive and appeal to users. We focused on beauty within the environment and made elements such as sound and art style our top priority in order to achieve this. By distributing tasks between us, we were each able to focus on our expertise as well as adapt in areas we weren't so comfortable with. This ensured we paid attention to important aspects of the game such as the quality of our assets as well as room for improvement in other areas.

WHAT DID I LEARN

Throughout the project I have definitely gathered more insight into how to perform well as a team and I have built friendships along the way! This project has taught me more about organisation, team management, pipelines and scheduling and I am definitely more informed than I was before the project.

I have learned how to be Lead Artist! This is something I have never done before and I definitely felt the pressure of being responsible for something so important for our vertical slice. I organised myself by creating an Art Bible first, because Semester 1 taught me this was a great thing to provide developers/artists in order to keep the style consistent and create assets which worked well with each other and to avoid contrasting styles. As this was a main focus in Anima Mundi I made sure to include detail in the art bible including mood-boards, colour schemes and written guidance on this. Additionally if artists needed extra guidance I was always available for them to reach out - this seemed to help artists during the early stages of development. Overall I learned this was a necessary step in leading the teams art style to ensure we worked to the same standards. This was a form of training for the team and without it Anima Mundi wouldn't have looked the way it does now!

I pushed myself outside my comfort zone and took on the responsibility of Animation. Although I did not have much to do I definitely stepped outside of what I was comfortable working with and exceeded my own expectations! Animating a butterfly was something I had never done before, so made sure to do a lot of research beforehand to ensure the outcome looked as realistic as possible. Essentially, I provided myself with training and I am proud with the outcomes of my animations as this is something I never saw myself succeeding in.

I adapted to the teams schedule and worked with the deadline in mind at all times. I felt as though I had a lot to do in a short period of time however I managed to organise myself and get everything done within the timeframe. Sound was something I was confident with however left to the last 2 weeks to compose and complete, which gave me little time to adapt and improve it. Despite this, I am still happy with the outcome of the soundtrack and I learned new skills in both Garage Band and and Logic X Pro which I can use in future projects and similar scenarios. Additionally, I learned that communication was vital during this project to ensure we were all on track and no one was relatively behind anyone else. At the beginning of the project I struggled with understanding the position of other team members, however after encouraging weekly team discussions and conversation in Slack this improved shortly after and we were in a much better position.

MY VALUE TO THE TEAM

If I had to go back and put myself forward for a game again, I would not do anything different! I am delighted that I was able to work for Team Anima Mundi as I feel I pushed myself outside my comfort zone and most definitely improved in a variety of topic areas. During my initial interview I was determined to create the sound for Anima Mundi, and apply my 2D art skills wherever I could. I feel as though I have done that to the best of my ability which is why I'd say I added value to the team. Sound/Audio was a huge part of the original concept designed by Josh and contributes to immersion - as we proposed to deliver. I am proud to say I stuck to my word and composed the official soundtrack for Anima Mundi! During the process I learned a lot about sound design too which I can use in future cases and refer back to my process/approach. Although we are a group of 5 2D artists, I feel we all brought individuality to the project which meant we all added value to the team. We were able to refine our expertise and be open about our capabilities which made task distribution fair and easy. My efforts towards marketing also meant we were able to gain an audience during the production of the vertical slice and I also created the material to promote both our game and the arcade event. I am thrilled with our outcome and proud of each member of our team.

WHAT WENT WELL - TEAM

The team's contribution to this project was great. After being assigned tasks by Team Leader, Kiera, we always made sure to take responsibility for our tasks and hand everything in on time. There were a few occasions where assets were handed in later than expected, however if this meant assets were made to a better quality or functioned better then this was better than having to provide feedback and create multiple versions of one thing.

At the beginning of the project we lacked in communication and struggled with updating each other on progress. We overcame this by holding a meeting with this as the main topic and introduced the use of 'Miro Boards' which encourages communication in another way. Miro was a real-time tracker of progress which allowed colour coding, comments and note taking allowing us to track each others progress on a specific task. Although this worked for the time that we used it, we naturally were drawn back to Slack and began to feedback regularly which was very helpful during the creation of assets. Team members would regularly send in their work via Slack where feedback would be given and changes would be made! This was also recorded in our asset list where members could keep track of this and be aware of what they'd need to do next. This allowed us to keep a consistent art style during asset creation and mitigate risks such as clashing colours before it was too late.

We held regular meetings to discuss the outcome of our tasks, progress and health checks to ensure we were working on schedule and if any member of the team had any queries/issues they were happy to discuss then this was the appropriate time to. We encouraged each other to have regular communication and I made it clear to the team that I was available to contact in private if need be. During Asset Creation, Charisma and I had regular conversations based on the outcome of our assets where I also answered any queries Charisma had during the process. After finalising this we would share our work with the team and gather extended feedback.

There were little to no problems with task distribution and completion of tasks as our team were very hard-working and motivated to learn although they might not have been confident in one topic area! For example I pushed myself with Animation which I do not have much experience in, similar to Daniella, and we are both very happy with the outcomes of our work!

During week 1/2 we focused on refining the Project Scope, taking into consideration how much time we had and the number of members in the team. We had to narrow down the vertical slice and refine it based on what was feasible yet still showcased the main elements of the game Anima Mundi. We managed to fulfill most of the project scope however did not have time to implement the 'Staff Charging Bar' Interface. This was essentially to put a timer on the Shaman (Player) Staff, meaning after using it once, would have to wait a little before using it again. We did not implement this into our complete vertical slice however after playtesting this seemed to have make no difference. Players still found the game challenging and enjoyed traversing the environment in between puzzle interactions, therefore I don't think this element of the game was very necessary. Next time it would be better to prototype this element before coming to a conclusion but for the sake of this project we did not take this idea further.

WHAT DIDN'T GO SO WELL? IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE FUTURE

As mentioned above, we lacked in communicating our progress on current tasks meaning we were unaware when someone had completed something or not. This resulted in sitting and waiting around for others to finish before we could move on, but we were unaware of when this would be. In order to overcome this we had to push each other to share work and discussed this via a Slack call. I also created a series of Google Docs to keep track of asset creation/final assets and the Asset List also enabled me to give feedback so people were completely aware of the changes they needed to make after production. Furthermore, this encouraged us to be more reflective in our work and pushed us to share work at all times via Slack or Trello.

Our Team Leader (Kiera) set up a Trello at the beginning of the Project, with plans to post and document our work weekly. For the initial weeks of the project we posted our work into Trello however naturally began to shift back to Slack where we had most of our conversations. Slack also enables members to react to posts and have easy access to files. Because of this we found it much easier to post our work here and keep each other updated regularly however, we kept our Trello Board and slowly updated our work there to act as a 'safe place' where we stored our work and could refer to if we needed something.

For future circumstances I would encourage using a digital schedule/organisation method. This is because tasks were distributed via Slack which I struggled to keep up with and therefore created my own schedule to keep track of my own progress. We also did not take advantage of the program 'Miro' which tracked team progress in real time as we were much more comfortable with Slack however, this is definitely something I'd recommend any team using to track the development of their project in a fun and light-hearted way.

We experienced a few setbacks, none of which were intentional! I see this more as a challenge than something that didn't go so well - that's the fun of working in a team. It was inevitable that we were to face a few challenges along the way but we were able to adapt and overcome these issues as soon as possible and adjusted our schedule accordingly. The most important thing was ensuring everyone was well and healthy during the course of the project.

DEVELOPING THE VERTICAL SLICE FURTHER...

There are multiple things I would've done more if we'd had the time involving elements to the game which we could've expanded on. Due to this project being a vertical slice and our first development project, there was only so much we could include. However for future purposes, if we were to develop this vertical slice further these are some of the things I would have considered further:

Giving players the opportunity to explore their region further, develop the idea of 'exploration' by providing players with opportunity to backtrack, secret pathways, easter eggs and a lot more interaction.
More intricate puzzles, requiring a lot of thought and focus - reflects more of our essential experience and team goals, to provide players with an immersive experience and method of escapism - We had Anima Mundi in mind as being a longer mobile game than usual, which would require long intricate gameplay.
Possibly enable players to interact with Spirits as Josh mentioned in his GDD. This would give us the chance to use Dialogue Systems and gives players the opportunity to interact with something other than the main puzzle interactions.
Focus on the visuals of each region and focus on making these looking extremely unique! We did a great job at designing the Air Region and with the same drive we could use this to influence the design of a range of different regions!

PROJECT POST-MORTEM

Based on our lecture with James, I have created a brief Post-Mortem for this project.

This is a more specific version of what I have mentioned above.

GOOD POINTS

Conducting regular testing and consulting each other about the result of this allowed us to make quick changes and adjustments. We regularly discussed the outcome of tests and came to an agreement based on next steps.

Quickly overcame any issues that may have occurred, and even with setbacks were able to adjust the schedule and complete tasks within their given time frame.

Asset Creation was performed to the best of our ability. We kept a consistent art style and always communicated with each other once we had created something to share the outcome and provide feedback.

Regular communication via Slack allowed us to keep track of progress as well as health.

Variation - we produced a variety of assets and iterations which allowed us to experiment and test with composition and arrangement in the final game structure. This helped us to evaluate the best setup and appearance for players.

BAD POINTS

At the beginning of the project we lacked in communication when it came to updating progress on current tasks. We were unaware when someone had completed their task or not and had to encourage each other to share this work. However, we were able to overcome this by discussing the importance of communication and we began to regularly communicate and evaluate each others work.

Task distribution became repetitive as it took longer to complete some tasks than expected. However we were able to work around this.

Not a lot of contribution to verbal meetings via Slack but this may have been a result of not being comfortable on camera. We were able to overcome this by messaging regularly and by asking questions in calls to encourage interaction.

THANK YOU TEAM!

I am extremely proud of myself and the team especially! We have worked incredibly hard this Semester and I am gobsmacked by everyone's hard work. It was a pleasure working with such a lovely and respectful team for this development project and I am excited for future projects! Our organisation allowed us to complete our tasks and the vertical slice within the given time-frame and while doing so, putting in 110% effort. Despite the bumps in the road, we managed to produce a beautiful piece of work and demonstrating Josh's original idea for Anima Mundi.

I am especially excited to showcase Anima Mundi with the team during the arcade event and play the other games made by Windie Games!