PRODUCER
ALIENS HELPS HUMANS
Role: Producer/Designer
Duration: September 2020 - January 2021
A 5-month project where the brief was "God-Game". Due to the broad genre, we had many options we could have gone with but chose a style close to the classic game "Lemmings".
PROMOTIONAL TRAILER
Gameplay
Aliens Help Humans is a puzzle game, where the player must safely guide Humans through challenging environments with the aid of 3 unique Aliens.
The gameplay is divided into 2 phases, setup and deployment.
In the setup phase, the player must assess the layout of the level and deploy aliens in areas where they will be able to effectively aid the Humans in their journey.
In the deployment phase, the Humans' Rocket will land, and the Humans will begin walking. Unfortunately for the Humans, they aren't very bright and will walk into danger if left on their own. Thus, the player must use the abilities of the deployed Aliens to guide the Humans over any obstacles.
Role in the Team
Due to the composition of the team and unforseen circumstances, I had the dual roles of Producer and Designer on this project. This was a challenging process which I feel I was able to achieve and in doing so I gained valuable experience I wouldn't have otherwise been able to gain.
Responsibilities as Producer
As the producer, I organised and attended every team meeting throughout the project, leading the discussion and taking notes of points raised.
Part of my responsibilities was task management, using Trello to oversee the completion of tasks and ensuring we remained on schedule and assigning new tasks to members as required.
Weekly meetings with the client were also a part of my responsibilities, as such I had to make sure that the build was in a presentable state each week, as well as preparing the presentation or demonstration of the build as required to update our weekly progress. While noting Client’s feedback to further discuss with the development team to iterate on the build for the following week.
Responsibilities as Designer
My responsibilities in this role were researching existing games in the market and developing concepts which would make our game stand out. Further responsibilities included creating detailed gameplay mockups which the programmers could then easily recreate within the game engine, which I then had to playtest and see whether the gameplay was both easy to understand and fun to play.
Throughout development I had to develop the Core Gameplay, Level Designs as well as the User Interface, which were then iterated upon over the duration of the project. Further development focused on responding to Client feedback and assessing how we could integrate their suggestions into the game.
Once the build was ready to be user tested, I oversaw user testing, which revealed a variety of issues which we had not previously considered. After collecting user testing feedback, further iteration was carried out, which focused on the user experience and gameplay clarity. What was obvious to the team, was not immediately apparent to the players. As such, we began to further improve our user experience by streamlining the initial learning experience and tutorials, adding in a minimap for the player to easily assess the level layout as well as making adjustments to the gameplay clarity via pop-up help menus.
Scrum Implementation
Due to the nature of the project, I applied the Scrum Development Methodology to ensure that the team was able to efficiently work together despite the challenging circumstances placed upon us due to working remotely to act in accordance with Covid safety guidelines.
This included daily scrum meetings where members could see what everyone was working on as well as allow members to raise questions or concerns about the development of the project. This proved highly effective as it allowed the team to be transparent and built trust amongst members that we were progressing and completing our tasks as required.
Reflecting on the Project
Working on Aliens Help Humans in both the production and design roles gave me insight into the development of a project from conception to delivery, from a unique perspective. On the one hand, I had to effectively ensure the feasibility of the project, whilst also ensuring we were capable of developing the game to the fullest of its potential.
If I were to sum up the experience on this project in one word it would be “flexibility”. I learned the value in keeping in an open mind and learned how to effectively communicate with team members to ensure we shared the same vision for the project, while taking into account the feedback given to us by the client.
In addition, working remotely to abide Covid safety guidelines let me experience a new set of unique challenges which I had not previously encountered. Such as maintaining and developing team relationships with members whom I had met in person on a handful of times, task prioritisation in order to meet weekly deadlines and how to effectively communicate through an online work environment .