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Space Booty

Postmortem

Designer: Rafael Garcia

Producer: Magnus Marshall

3D Artist: Tommy Luo

Programmer: Milo Bruschke

Level Designer: Miguel A Fuentes

Vision Statement: Capture strategic space stations, upgrade your ship with devastating weaponry, and become the most feared pirate captain in this thrilling space adventure.

Game Summary: Destroy enemy ships using your ship’s death ray, laser cannons, and rockets with strategy to loot space stations on asteroids. Avoid dangerous obstacles and destroy battlements. Spend your booty to get more health

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Total Production Stats

# of User Stories assigned during production = 255

2.) # of points assigned during production = 287

3.) # of User Stories moved into complete = 251

4.) # of points moved into complete = 283

5.) # of User Stories assigned but not moved = 4

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Burndown Chart

Actual Velocity: 40.4 pt/spt

Ideal Velocity: 41 pt/spt

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Magnus Postmortem

What went wrong:

I messed up communication occasionally with my team as certain things needed to be explained more from the get-go on card negotiations, and I did not describe what was needed sometimes. This led to sending cards back to ensure things were being done correctly. Throughout production, I got a lot more mindful with this and less miscommunication occurred!

I micromanaged my modeler early on because of the fear that the game wouldn't look good. This was unprofessional and caused a lot more pressure than necessary to be put on my modeler, especially when I encouraged him to learn a new modeling skill that is hard to master.

Simply updating prefabs with new models is not easy at all. I should have foreseen this challenge, but it never occurred to me. This would have made my programmer have a much easier time setting up the original prefabs with the final space station models work with the final setups.
I did not add references to my modeler’s cards when I reluctantly thought the original references were clear, but they were conflicting with each other. I should have prevented this by establishing a consistent art style with my designer. Ultimately, I had to redirect the art style of the game to help fit my modeler’s skill set as well as promote unity in design language. While the game visually became unified, I did not gather all the references early on and ended up looking for references for my modeler and myself at the sprint kick-off. I should have found the reference early on to prevent reference miscommunication.

PRESENTATION NAME

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Magnus Postmortem

What went right:

I was able to prioritize the backlog correctly for the entire project and at the beginning, so that the game could get completed with all features and even wishes getting into the game.

I was able to host team meetings at important times of production to make sure everything got into the game smoothly, or at least as smoothly as possible. Facilitating team communication was incredibly important and I am very happy I could achieve this

I was able to redirect the art style of the game to make it less confusing and unified the art direction and made a lot of assets for the game as a 3d Artist as well as find great sounds in time.

I was able to make a well made sci fi metal smart material with two colored variants to ensure consistency across models and make texturing really simple for other members.

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Magnus Postmortem

What did I learn:

I learned that being a producer is very difficult, especially with other demanding classes. Communication is important at every stage of production and at an individual level in every aspect.

I learned that trusting your team is a lot more important than getting perfection from them. Perfection is unrealistic in production and hinders progress by a lot. Sometimes, good enough is better than getting things perfect, especially if they are new to a skill. Adding pressure like this is very unhealthy for a production and as human beings.

I learned that hosting team meetings often and at least once each sprint is extremely important for bringing everyone’s work together and working together to get builds going. I knew this was important at first, but I didn't think it would matter as much as it actually does. These meetings, especially in person, encourage a more consistent flow of work completion and on-the-spot verification, and with smoother implementation.

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Rafael Postmortem

What went right:

Quick Prototype.

Particle system in Unity.

User Interface.

More than 3 levels done.

PRESENTATION NAME

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Rafael Postmortem

What went wrong:

The initial design document lacked detailed descriptions of my vision, especially for modeled references, causing confusion for developers who struggled with my reliance on internet image searches. This resulted in frequent issues with incorrectly scaled imported models relative to the player ship, requiring constant rescaling.

Level design presented challenges with enemy battlement placement, as their coordinate based targeting initially caused them to miss the player if their Y-axis position was changed. This necessitated adjusting the whole level. Additionally, some level paths were too long and dull.

Balancing the five weapons for distinct uses within levels was a significant challenge requiring extensive trial and error and playtesting. Initially, the broadsides were too dominant, while other weapons felt pointless or overpowered.

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Rafael Postmortem

What did I learn:

As a designer, the main lesson I've learned from this experience is the critical importance of a well-defined game development document in establishing the vision and scope for the game. It's imperative that this document serves as a constant reference point that my other team members can consult for guidance on the game's framework. A strong vision communicated to each member is essential for them to understand what I, as the designer, am trying to achieve with the game.

Another key takeaway is the emphasis these classes place on communication with other team members. I believe this was by far the most important aspect.

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Milo Postmortem

What went wrong:

Model importing difficulties
Unanticipated subsystems
Manually replacing prefabs

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Milo Postmortem

What went right:

Early prototype
Quick adaptations
Good core gameplay
Scalable systems
“Essentials” package

PRESENTATION NAME

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Milo Postmortem

What did I learn:

Proactive questions
Delegated responsibilities, making calls
Future-proofing and documentation
Important systems early

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Tommy Postmortem

What went wrong:

Learning hard surface modeling on the fly is hard
Combining everything together at the end of the semester turned into quite the headache since we didn’t have as much time to prepare as we would have liked
N-gons getting constantly created from high surface models due to me not properly handling edge flow.

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Tommy Postmortem

What went right:

Modeling proceeded smoothly and I succeeded in making them look detailed
Giving my models textures went very smoothly because of good UVs helping to dictate where textures will go
Designer and Lead liked my models

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Tommy Postmortem

What did I learn:

Something that I learned from this experience is the importance of time management. At the beginning of the semester, due to not properly managing my workload from other classes, I ended up having to do a lot of the work from this class towards the end of the week/sprint. This caused a lot of stress, and although I did better starting mid-semester, I still would like to pay more attention to this so that my team’s work is constantly updated.

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Miguel Postmortem

What went wrong:

Some levels not meeting the producer’s expectations at first.

One finalized level needed to be restarted.

Brief moments of miscommunication.

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Miguel Postmortem

What went right:

Designing the levels including the annotated maps.

Asking questions outside of class, through Discord.

Meeting in person outside of class, making it easier to focus.

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Miguel Postmortem

What did I learn:

I learned some important communication benefits, including responding to others’ messages, asking questions, and meeting in person rather than online. When I have a question for my group, even outside of class, I’m not afraid to ask them.

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Game Postmortem

What would we do differently?:

Moving forward, our team would prioritize several key changes. We'd aim to import assets earlier to ensure proper scaling and prefab setup, while also focusing on correct modeling practices to avoid unwanted geometry. Investing in modeling skills would contribute to better project quality. Additionally, we'd establish early team meetups to proactively improve group work ethic, building on the success we observed towards the project's end.

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Game Postmortem

What would we do again?:

As a group, we would manage our time more effectively by implementing consistent weekly meetings, held either on Discord or in person. These meetings would serve as check-ins to discuss progress, address potential problems, answer questions, and ensure we're aligned on our goals. This would also allow us to better distribute tasks based on individual strengths and weaknesses in development.

PRESENTATION NAME