Frog Float
Frog Float is a retro-style video game that takes inspiration from pixel arcade games. Built in Unity, our team of five people had three weeks to come up with a game idea, create tasks and complete them, and make a presentation to pitch our idea to the class. My role as producer on this project meant I kept track of our game's progress through Trello and helped teammates when a roadblock prevented our progress. I also helped with the game's design, including brainstorming ideas and implementing sound design.
Development
Ideation Phase
Since development of our game was only three weeks, we quickly suggested ideas for our game's overall direction. I facilitated the discussion and kept record of different design choices so we could talk through each concept and how it would work with our timeline.
When we narrowed down our idea, I listed out the pillars of our game and led a meeting where we discussed what our players could and couldn't do in the game. This conceptualization helped me organize the tasks everyone would be responsible for and updated it on our Trello board I created.
Development Phase
During development, I worked with each teammate to talk about their task lists and if there were any issues we needed to solve,
Throughout the project, I updated our Trello board to keep everyone on the same page. I also kept in contact with the team outside of class and messaged everyone on Discord in case someone had an issue over the weekend or wanted to ask a question privately.
I also helped with the design of the game. Part of my job was to choose and implement sound design so our game could feel more like an arcade game. I worked with our artists to keep the style cohesive. At one point we needed to change some of our art assets. We were able to discuss the issue together and come to a solution that didn't compromise our game's esthetics while allowing our artist to add her own touch.
During the entire process, I would playtest the game and make suggestions to our engineer or game artist. Our engineer and I worked together to tweak the movement for our frog, so players would have a floating sensation as if they were moving across the water.
Presentation Phase
I created a one-sheet presentation of our game and delivered a pitch for what made our game unique. Afterwards, our class played each group's games and I helped anyone who was playtesting our game if they had questions or comments. Before class, I had also written out a questionnaire for people to fill out so we could get feedback from our finished game. We got a lot of positive feedback.
Once everyone had played our game, I led one last meeting where we talked about our experience making the game and how we worked together as a team. It was a great discussion and everyone was impressed with how efficient we were because of our commitment to communicate with one another.
