Convoke

University Group Project, 2021

Duration: 9 Weeks

Theme: Altruism

Team Size: 7 Members

My Roles: Design, gameplay/mechanics design and development, UI, VFX, playtesting & bug tracking.

Software Used: Unreal Engine 4, Photoshop, Notion, Logic Pro, Trello, Miro.

The lands are dying, only the strength of the Golem can restore the monuments and revive the terrain. The Golem relies on his spirit companion (the player) to summon him using a bell and help locate structures and complete puzzles.

The Golem must also remain happy by consuming mushrooms along the journey.

"Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish." - Richard Dawkins

The first couple of weeks were spent getting to know each other, project planning using Trello and finalising a design idea. As the theme was ‘Altruism’ we wanted to focus on the atmosphere and create a non-violent game that connotes friendship and responsibility.

My first steps were to research, create a moodboard and begin developing potential gameplay loops. I used Miro, Notion and Photoshop for all of my preparatory work.

It was important to me to include urgency, even though our game was non-violent I wanted the player to be compelled to act. We achieved this through a summoning mechanic, whereby the player cannot pick up the items needed and must instead summon the Golem to do so. Together, they can work in tandem to achieve the objectives. This theme continues into the games second section, a push puzzle, where the Golem must again be the one to carry out the actions.

Designing and developing this project with my team was a really fun experience, we all treated it professionally and conducted regular team stand-up meetings to ensure everyone was on the same page and progressing. During these we also developed a highly iterative development style.

DESIGN PROCESS

PLAYTESTING

Another responsibility of mine was overseeing playtesting and collating the feedback for the team. As I was the only team member from Indie Development I felt comfortable playtesting and collecting feedback I used Google Docs and Google Forms to collect feedback and hosted the in0development game via my itch.io page.

My main priorities were:

  • Frequent testing as we reached the conclusion.

  • A clear feedback form using open/closed questions and room for free typing.

  • An efficient way to distil the information for my teammates.

My solution for this was to:

  1. Playtest weekly for the last 4 weeks. - As this was for university we had a pool of playtesters and we could collaborate across teams.

  2. Use the same form each time. - A clear, structured form that we could use to view any trends or areas of concern.

  3. Collate the findings into a Google Doc, shared with my team weekly. - I also colour-coded it so specialisms could easily see their feedback.

Overall this playtesting went really well and it definitely helped improve the game and find bugs we may have overlooked.

Playtest Survey:

Feedback Sheet for Team:

REFLECTION

Key Takeaways

  • For this project I learnt a lot, I was ambitious with my technical goals and I am pleased that I fulfilled most of them, it was great to work within a team where we could collaborate and share solutions. I feel that my Blueprint knowledge really advanced here.

    My biggest achievement however was more personal and it was this project that really helped me build confidence. Working within a team on a long term project was really rewarding and seeing it come together was a huge accomplishment.

  • As with all projects and hindsight there are small things I would do differently but overall I would not change any major elements. I know if we undertook this project again we would have a far more polished result however I feel happy with what we produced and the amount I learnt from it.