Rock The House

• Project Management

  • Structured a shared Google Drive with folders for documentation, playtesting notes, and project organizing tools.

    • Further broke down the development of the project into 4, roughly 3-week sprints to maintain task relevancy.  

    • Created design documentation including a design macro chart to detail major design aspects.

  • Kept track of team progress each week using SCRUM Burndown Charts.

  • Organized weekly meetings to communicate upcoming deadlines, current progress, and group playtests.

  • Oversaw development process of programming, design, art, and audio teams.

  • Established strong communication on Discord. 

• Collaborative Problem-Solving

  • From playtest feedback, the team learned about a critical design flaw in one of the major mechanics that reduced fun-factor in moment-to-moment gameplay.  

    • Tasked the programming team with creating small playable demos of discussed design solutions, which saved much time in coming to a timely decision.

    • Weighed pros and cons of potential direction changes and ultimately devised a plan that allowed us to enhance the engagement and reward-factor of the mechanic and release the game on time. 

  • Learned to review scope as a team and confidently make direction changes driven by player feedback.

• Project Shipping

  • Created an itch.io page for the game that includes a descriptions of the game, a trailer, 4 screenshots, and controller input graphics.

  • Presented the project at MSU's Game Development Showcase.

• Team Support

  • Onboarded 4 new team members halfway through development, familiarizing them with the project.

  • Organized fun social events for the team outside the project.

UI

• Gameplay UI and Problem-Solving

  • Made a prototype UI overlay that displayed specific information for each player at the bottom of the screen.

    • For each player individually, it displayed information including player health, score, ability cooldowns, and more.

    • This design was functional, but had many design flaws that took much player feedback and iteration to address.

  • Addressed all of the following issues of the old design by reimagining the UI in an intuitive way:

    • Learned through player feedback that looking down and away from the gameplay was too hard during action packed moments.

      • Created a "Player UI Status Ring", which is represented by a 2D ring at the feet of each player and displays their current health value.

      • The ring helps players see where they are by being colored to match the player and health is displayed inside the ring with a green bar.

    • The UI overlay covered a large portion of the screen and contained more information than necessary.

      • Ensured cooldown information was retained through intuitive "aiming arrows" that appear while a player is holding down an ability button and disappears once the button is released. 

        • The arrows are uniquely shaped to remind players of their effect and the cooldowns are represented on the arrow itself through a filling-up animation to provide clear visual feedback. 

  • These solutions placed vital information in players' direct view, reducing on-screen UI whenever possible.

• Menu UI

  • Wireframed and prototyped all UI menu screens in Adobe XD:

    • Main Menu, Tutorial, Options, Credits, Loading transitions, Character select, Match settings, Pause, and Victory.

  • Produced the artwork for all the game's UI elements.

  • Maintained a visual design system, considerate of visual hierarchy and typography. 

  • Positioned menu controls at the bottom of the screen to facilitate player navigation within each menu.

    • Created icons for all controller inputs in Adobe Illustrator.

  • Iterated on the art of all menus multiple times, meticulously refining and enhancing them to ensure a cohesive and polished UI.

• Game Tutorial

  • Developed a 9-page in-game tutorial menu accessible via the main menu and the pause menu.

    • The Tutorial teaches the player about the different gameplay mechanics and instrument weapon abilities.

    • Used special font headers to organize relevant sections. 

    • Used concise sentences with rich text to highlight important words for simple and quick reading.

    • Implemented short gameplay video clips that automatically play to enhance understanding with visualization.

    • Included controller input graphics to show the game controls.

UX

• Gameplay and Controls UX

  • Engineered the game controls to utilize a minimal number of controller buttons, resulting in an intuitive and accessible gameplay experience that is easy for players to pick up and enjoy.

    • Buttons have familiar actions with other gaming experiences.

    • Took special care in designing the control scheme to prioritize a comfortable controller grip during extended play sessions, ensuring a more enjoyable and ergonomic gaming experience for players.

  • Implemented a player-specific pause feature that grants exclusive control of the pause menu to the player who initiated the pause, effectively preventing accidental inputs from other players during gameplay interruptions.

• Menu UX

  • Incorporated small flashing arrows within the options and match settings menus to enhance visibility and provide clear indication of the current selection. These visual cues helped players easily identify their chosen options or settings. 

  • Character Select:

    • Implemented a held-input requirement system on the character select screen to prevent inadvertent exits during customization. This feature was visually represented by a filling bar that progressively fills up while the required button is being held, ensuring players are intentional when navigating the screen and minimizing accidental disruptions.

    • Implemented a "Ready" system that indicates who has finished customization and begins a match countdown once all players are ready.

• Accessibility

  • Selected Verdana font for the game's regular text specifically accounting for readability and dyslexia. 

  • Completed extensive work to guarantee a color accessible experience:

    • Carefully chose an 8-color accessible color palette to use as the major 8 colors all UI would be designed with and that players can use to customize their character from.

    • Utilized chromatic vision simulators frequently to correct any color issues during development.

    • Obtained playtest feedback from a few colorblind friends to assist development. 

  • Options menu:

    • Includes individual volume settings for master, music and sounds.

    • Toggles for screen shake and controller haptics. 

  • Match Settings Menu:

    • An expansive interface that allows players to customize elements of the game such as what instrument weapons will appear, match time, required points to win, cooldown and damage modifiers, and more.

    • Created 3 fun presets or "game modes" to help inspire players to make fun changes to the game for replay-ability. 

    • Included a "Reset to Default" button that allowed players to easily revert all values back to their original defaults.

  • All changes made in options and match settings menus are saved between play sessions. 

• Level Design

  • Sketched a concept for the play arena on paper, then created a digital version to present to the team.

  • Blocked out the level with ProBuilder.

    • Devised a list of potential visual interest props for the environmental artist, keeping to the fantasy-forest theme.

    • Made more detailed and size accurate props for each major piece of visual interest with ProBuilder.

    • After finishing the blockout, created a file for the environmental artist to use in Blender to sculpt the final product.

  • Placed 6 weapon pedestals and 6 player spawnpoints evenly throughout the map.

  • Utilized and placed navmesh components to specify the game's intended play area.

• Balancing and Iterating

  • Scheduled regular playtests to collect analytical data from players and the development team.

    • Collected playtest videos and analytics pertaining to matches and weapon balancing.

  • Revised several areas of the map to enhance the play experience.

    • Altered some areas to have more or less defensive cover.

    • Adjusted locations of certain landmarks to shift player density towards the center. 

    • Changed some weapon and player spawnpoints to make the map more fair for players and to encourage them to play less recklessly as discovered from playtests. 

• Polishing

  • Once final environment art assets were placed on the blockout, slightly adjusted a few objects to correctly align with the previously tested and polished level.

  • Resolved any persisting navmesh issues causing out of bounds scenarios or unintended situations.