Well folks, the time has come. As part of our game development process in AGAD, each team had to come up with a name and brand. And without further ado, I introduce to you: Studio Rust. With this newfound level of professionalism, we're now ready to begin production on our game. Having this title worked out, and our roles set, the stages of pre-production should be able to start fairly quickly on our end. While it did take some time to work out said roles, we eventually got everyone into a position where they would provide the most to the team and the final product. As for me? I just have to oversee it all, it was in my contract after all. In general, I have a lot of confidence in this team, as we have some especially talented people on all fronts. I hope that this talent will pull through and provide as much as possible to our final game. We hope to put our general idea for a 2D platformer to use, particularly with pixel graphics, and perhaps a Metroidvania gameplay system. These are essential questions that we will ask and answer as we move into pre-production. I wish the rest of the production teams good luck. And a special message to Butter Cow Games: This is not over
Our Team Website: Studio Rust - Home (weebly.com)
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Now this project took a good amount of time to make, which is both a positive and negative thing in this scenario. I'll start with the negative: This was an extremely stressful project at parts. That concludes the list of negatives. As for the positives, I'm very glad with the way that this turned out in the end, as it achieved a level of detail that I didn't even know I was capable of creating. The variation in terrain, the spread of structures, and different ways that I made use of other students components, I just feel the effort was worth it in the end. And I'm glad I ended with this rather than a rushed product. To kick off the design debrief, I'm going to quickly talk about the buildings that I "populated" the island with. Aside from one, I stuck very close to the original design of the buildings themselves, only making slight adjustments here and there whenever there were issues with importing or resizing the pieces. The main difference was in the Mountaintop Abode, which I gave a derelict appearance by placing certain pieces of the house in awkward positions, almost as if they had been ripped off by some kind of storm. These same buildings were placed specifically in areas with different geological characteristics, meaning that the process of traveling to them leads the player through new environments and encounters. That being said, the geography itself does not resemble that of a typical island, which is entirely the point, as the "imaginary lore" behind the island is that it is completely unmapped, and often difficult to reach in the first place. This atmosphere makes it easy to fill the land itself with as many mysterious things as humanly possible. Outside of this general criteria, I stuck to making a generally mountainous terrain, with the only areas actually considered "mountains" being especially tall and rocky. I also made sure to take advantage of the ability to generate forests, with one of the main structures being placed in the densest forest on the map. Overall, I don't think I would have this environment any other way (I bet I'll come to regret saying that). For a first try, this is not bad at all! And I hope to keep this streak up as we move into team activities.
As part of our transition to a team format in AGAD, we all had to create work boards on an application called "Trello", designed for task and deadline management. Being the team lead, I had to create the board, as I will most likely serve as the admin for the rest of the school year. That being said, I took some time messing around with the settings, and found Trello to be quite efficient at what it advertises, what a surprise. And I hope that these features hold up to the initial impression that they had on me. Overall, Trello's process of cataloging items by their level of completion was extremely helpful, especially since that's how nearly everything in this class is going to be categorized for the rest of the year. For the sake of keeping the template clean, I ended up leaving most of the default format alone, since it already served a purpose that I would have set up myself. Aside from that, I did end up adding an area for questions, as I see that being far more useful than each of my team members asking me a question one at a time. Being able to add small descriptions within those items, and mark them by level of priority, means that no objective is easy to miss as production rolls along. Ultimately, I see all of those small details proving to be monumentally important in the future. Trello, as a whole, is an extremely important application for those working in teams. Its method of organizing priorities and deadlines means that no team member can forget a task whenever they open up the board. That and the ability of the admin to continuously add tasks means that any important notes made during production can be quickly added rather than forgotten over time. Bottom line, I'm glad this exists in comparison to our alternative of just winging it.
As we move into team projects, I not only do I need to manage the roles for the rest of my team, but my own roles as well. Notice how I said "roles" as a plural statement? Well that's because I'm going have to do some multitasking if we're to stay on track as a group. Aside from playing my already assigned role as team lead, I'll also have to manage the design direction of the game in its entirety, as well as pick up my own individual tasks here and there. As seen in the infographic, the roles I will be taking on are that of the main 2D Artist, as well as the Lead Designer. As for the lead design role, I more so inherited it by simply being the team lead, so I'm stuck with it for the time being. That being said, I fully understand my responsibilities I have with this newfound title, mainly in the fact that I have to manage the general direction of the game and the specific tasks of the other team members. With these responsibilities clearly listed, I believe that my easy-to-talk-to nature will make me a good fit for the role, as I can effortlessly cooperate and communicate with others. This is important to the success of the team, as we all need to be on the same page at all times. And if one person is off-track, everyone is off-track. Now for the 2D Artist role, that's a position that I had to claim for myself when we had our initial conversation about team roles. This is because my years of experience and meddling in different art styles makes me an easy candidate for the role. That being said, I'm aware that I will be responsible for a large portion of the 2D assets. While that may be a challenge, I still chose the role since it would be an area where I provided as much as I could to the final product outside of product management. My skills in this role would be far more beneficial to the development of the project than if I were in any other asset creation role. All in all, I'm confident in my ability to juggle both roles, or at least my team members seem to think so. Regardless I know I can produce quality work as our project production begins, as well as keep everyone on track as we begin the long march to make our own game.
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AuthorI have a passion for creating things, and hopefully one day those things will be video games. You can check over on this blog if you wish to see any updates on my work or other subjects. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools.
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