August 2017 - November 2017
Independent development
During the development process for Kataklizma, I developed this game as a side project and alongside Kataklizma. My reasoning was because of how much i wanted to develop my own skill and learn, but also because of lack of work for myself as a designer during Kataklizma. I done so much that it was hard to find new tasks. So i let our lead for Kataklizma give me tasks as they were found or requested and required.
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During this side project, I further identified my personal strengths and weaknesses. I learned from the development experience and put myself in a position to try and recover or set myself to succeed the following time and period.
The Regulator: "Don't stop the flow!" - 2017​
Independent side project to Kataklizma
I juggled between Kataklizma and TRDSTF constantly trying to develop skills and develop my Design, Art and Programming ability's.
I found this to be a significant challenge and realized my confidence to not document the project in GDD format and write before producing was my downfall.
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I developed a ton of thing's featured bellow.
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As the Student Developer -
I designed the user experience, programmed all game functionality and artistically developed the scene lightly.
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My own work included:
Hud
GUI
Inventory system
Weather system
Pipe interaction
World interaction
Objective system
Alerts system
Player controller
Economy
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The lessons i learned were:
Even if your on your own document absolutely everything before you produce a feature!
Develop a GDD or Trello as you would do if in a professional environment even if your independent
How to not ruin your development pipeline
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Software used -
Maya
Unity
PaintDotNet
Photoshop
Visual Studio C#
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The projects time frame was expected to be 12 - 22 weeks. But had complications it has been cancelled until the pipeline has been developed.
It is and was a SOLO project.
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Post mortem -
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What went right?
I got the core game-play mechanics working and playable
The game was playable and did work before 1.0a
Received lots of positive feedback surprisingly!
I learned enough that i am satisfied with the state of the project, and the skills I learned I would like to take to the next and return one day to Finnish what I started!
The game visuals kept breaking at one point that they visually went invisible and popped in and out of the screen depending where you were in relation to said canvas
My second monitor broke through accidental damage and made it hard to program for a bit
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What went wrong?
The game space for 2D was not effective for the visual desire of the final product
Converting the 2D based code to 3D vectoring was going to take a lot of time and effort
I did not have enough time to develop and distribute this product to help my financial situation
I put myself under excessive pressure juggling between my team, my game, my neighbors and my co-workers and rendering assistance in the class
What would i do differently?
Limit myself to a maximum workload and working pace
Get rest to improve my performance and effectiveness
Scope much smaller till I have the time to develop something this large
Re-evaluate the scope through user story's and whats required for the game to be 100% playable without extra features.
