Term 2 Post Mortem

So, four months (1/3) down. Do I feel 33% smarter? Well, maybe not, but I know the time has been worth it.

As with any school, you have to take the good with the bad at VFS—a $32k annual price tag doesn't magically give the school better contacts in the industry with which to instruct future game designers—so we have a handful of absolute stand-out instructors who are passionate and who genuinely care about making everyone's time worth that tuition. We also have a small handful of instructors at the other end of the spectrum, but fortunately you can learn a great deal from someone even if they are just there to collect a paycheque.

Anyway, it's been good. Term 2 is feared far and wide as "the Flash term" for the Flash game that is the first full game-building experience in the program. As an assignment, it spans seven weeks and many more major challenges. First time managing a team? Better learn fast, son. Lazy or unreliable team members? Engage them, somehow. Can't code in Flash? Someone in your team had better learn.

And so on. I'll post about my game, Pistol Reef, in the next few days. For now I wanted to talk about what I did well, what I did poorly, and what I learned from what was a draining but rewarding term of Game Design.

What I Did Well
* I prioritized my assignments well, put the effort where it was required, and zeroed in on what I could ignore early on. For example, I was able to avoid learning much of anything about Maya, recognizing that my only Maya assignment actually made extensive use of Photoshop. I will want to make up the time with Maya later, but during the term this provided me with upwards of 15 hours in-class that I could use for more pressing and relevant assignments. This also saved me an enormous amount of frustration that I will touch on later when I talk about learning styles in an upcoming post.

* I embraced the project manager role at every opportunity, and the feedback from my peers and instructors was very encouraging. I dealt with issues by using different management styles with different people, and the results were mostly very good.

* I made strong relationships with many of my peers and instructors.

What I Did Poorly
* I snapped on another student during a group meeting a couple of weeks ago, cowing him into silence with volume and tone. He deserved it, but it was highly unprofessional for me to lose my cool. There are thankfully only a few behaviors that will trigger this reaction in me—obtuseness and disrespect being right up there—but outbursts like that can get me into a lot of trouble, and they are never welcome in the workplace.

* I allowed myself to get run down, and the resulting cold sapped a lot of energy out of me for days. This had unfortunate sweeping effects across all assignments and relationships. What suffered most was my UDK Deathmatch assignment, which I liked, but the result was downright sloppy when set next to my previous UDK assignment. I expect my grade will still be good, but I will lose marks on polish.

What's my plan for Term 3?
* Continue to prioritize well, but be sure that my health is at the top of that list. When I am stressed and swamped I am all too willing to let my diet and sleep take the hit. The resulting colds are productivity and attitude killers.

* Be completely aware of my temper and manage both my expectations and the expectations of my peers. Realize that many people will not be as focused or as driven as I am. Setting up those clear expectations early is good for everyone involved, but it makes an especially huge difference in my ability to react and roll with the punches.

* Spend more time and energy connecting with students outside of my class. I have solid relationships with many instructors, and close friends in my own GD23 class, but it's so easy for me to ignore the 22s, 24s, and the many fine people in other classes. A surefire way to meet people is to host a game-related event at the school, so maybe I'll start with one of those early in T3.

Anyway, that's enough for now. Tune in next time for frank discussions of my classmates and the drama emerging from the formation of two final project teams (including my own) almost a full term early.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Road to Pistol Reef

Pistol Reef is a 2D, third-person side-scrolling shooter where an adorably furious pistol shrimp named Rotor uses his claws and an arsenal of upgradeable weaponry to battle the forces poisoning his reef home. It will feature over-the-top character and enemy designs, a cel-shaded art style, and rotating weapon nodes around Rotor's body. 

Pistol Reef is the Flash game my team is making over the next six weeks.

I mentioned before that we created our Flash teams before the end of Term 1. Our first step as a team was to discuss our roles, followed quickly by me (the PM) setting a deadlined meeting for the five of us to share at least two well-developed ideas for games that we would want to make and play. The results were lackluster, but fortunately we settled on an idea that has some real potential to be tonnes of fun and a beautiful portfolio piece. Before I get into that, though, I wanted to discuss why Pistol Reef, my idea, was chosen over the others.

Let me state first that my idea wasn't better than any of the other (few) pitches that came out of our first meeting. There were some intriguing ideas there that could make for good games. Still, I've found I often get my way—my ideas get "made" in the confines of our assignments and projects—for four reasons.

1. I take the prep time and the assignment seriously so I can develop good ideas.

2. I present entire ideas (not just gameplay concepts) using the structures we have been taught.

3. I only pitch ideas that I am invested in. I pitch ideas for games I would want to play.*

4. I'm willing to be wrong. Ideas are cheap and everywhere, and better ones are bound to come along. This makes humbleness easy to come by.

* From speaking to our instructors in the industry, this is a habit I will want to break if I want to seem intellectually fecund**; somewhere between one and five percent of professionally pitched ideas end up being implemented, so I should get used to pitching everything, not just the "good" ideas.

** I don't care how haughty this sounds. It's my vocabulary and I can dig into it if I want to. :)

Anyway, I have no doubt that being older and bolder than the other students also plays a part in me getting my stuff "made", but I've been more than willing to take the passenger role during group work when someone else steps into that leadership role. Someone's gotta do it.

Back to Pistol Reef. GD has six intakes (one every two months) right now, so there is plenty of wisdom to plumb, and the most common advice has been to manage our scope for these major projects. Pistol Reef's goal length has been set to a modest five levels, and while we have some ambitious art and design aspects (20+ enemies, minibosses, bosses, and multiple weapon types) I think our team is up for it. Ideally, it will look a little like Castle Crashers and play a little like Metal Slug, and if we can achieve those goals I will be incredibly proud.

This is the first project of this scope for all of us, though, so I am being cautious with my optimism, but yesterday we received feedback from our instructors on our concept document, and it was overwhelmingly positive. The few negatives were already picked up by us and addressed as a team, and we were also warned to put our core gameplay before our sweet unique mechanics, lest we fall behind and have to scale back.

I'm hopeful, and I know we have the talent to make a good game, but we have our work cut out for us and I have some creeping doubts that I am hoping to address soon.

I'll tell you about those soon. Thanks for stopping by.