Development Information

  • Team size: Four (2 Level Designers, 1 Artist, 1 Programmer)
  • Production Duration: Four months
  • Work Hours: 12 hours per developer per week
  • Engine: Unity 5
  • Platform: Google Nexus 7 Tablet

Summary

Kirie is a game developed for the Android Nexus 7 as part of my Team Game Production I class. Players guide a little girl, Kirie, through a world made of paper by cutting pieces of the environment and creating platforms for her to walk on. If players manage to solve all of the puzzles, they successfully lead Kirie back home, and they're treated to a shower of flower particles!

Business Plan: As part of another class, I worked alongside the team to formulate a detailed business plan of how we would bring Kirie to life.

Playtest Report: For each formal playtest that we held, I worked with the team to create a report to record the feedback we received. 

Sprint Retrospective: At the end of each sprint, I led the team in a retrospective where we contemplated what we'd achieved, and discussed what we could do better for the next sprint.

My Responsibilities (Team Lead, Level Designer)

  • Serve as scrum master
  • Lead team presentations
  • Create and lead the maintenance of the Asset Develpment Plan and the Asset Database, and maintain relevant planning sections of the Game Design Document
  • Create five puzzle stages for the game, and maintain their data in the Game Design Document
  • Create or source sound effects and music for the game

Mini-Postmortem

What Went Right

  • Making the world come alive
  • Used design meetings efficiently
  • Gelled well together
  • Designed the game for the target platform
  • Maintained positive attitude
  • Great team culture
  • When we did documents, they were high quality
  • Not afraid to communicate positive/negative feedback
  • Made a fun game

What Went Wrong

  • The team backloaded Paperwork
  • Took a while to find the right feel in the mechanics
  • Unclear documentation requirements
  • Design had trouble communicating needs to art
  • Perforce submission conflicts

What We Learned

  • A team united behind a vision is extremely important
  • Communicate requirements based on disciplines
  • Test game ASAP with as many testers as possible
  • Don’t hack things together, take time to do them right the first time.
  • Positive culture influences people to work hard
  • Scrum is useful
  • Game design changes a lot from initial design documents

Image Gallery