On that note, I want to introduce you to one of the indie artists I met, Richelle Rueda, who's spent the past several months on the dev team for a game called Red Sun (which looks like an exciting dark twist on the classic Bo-Peep.) I've always wondered what it's like to build a game from scratch and trying to co-ordinate a team of people who might have competing visions for the final product. SO here's a behind-the-scenes look at the process and some of the challenges of starting your own project:
A Little Information
My name is Richelle Rueda. I graduated from Texas A&M with a B.Sc. in biology. I worked in oncology research for three years, but I have always been an avid gamer. During school I worked as a freelance 2D artist under the pen name FireCatRich on deviantart. While my freelance work is primarily digital, I’ve had formal training in 2D and 3D traditional art at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada, receiving high honors upon completion of my studies. This past year I've been in the post-graduate game design program at Sheridan. There I led a small development team through their capstone project from concept to completion in the summer of 2014. 
Red
Sun is a vertical slice - a small, polished sample or demo that is
representative of a larger game - a 2-D puzzle platformer that was
built in Unity 4. Ideally this can be used in a presentation to
potential employers or investors as a sample of our work even if the
larger game is never finished. The developer’s blog for Red Sun can
be found here.
The
Pitch
In
December of 2013, all the designers in my cohort were tasked with
making a short game pitch for our peers and the programming students.
There were two main goals to this pitch. The first was to illustrate
a clear vision for a game, highlighting its unique characteristics
and project risks. The second goal was to demonstrate our personal
skills and what we could offer to the team. The sculpture below was
made to do both. I was the only traditional sculptor in the class and
while it did not directly contribute to the digital game, it did
demonstrate my clear vision of the main character and my dedication
to the project.
The
games pitches with the most votes were then able to form teams in
January. Red Sun had a total of four members when the entire process
was completed, with two designers and two programmers.
The
original game proposal was then mapped out. The GDD (game design
document) was written as though we had unlimited time and manpower on
the project. This helped us to get all of our widely ranging ideas
and goals for the project on paper. All of our team members had the
opportunity to add their own ideas into the game, though not all of
them chose to do so. While it was frustrating to not receive that
much input from the other members of the team, my personal goal was
to have the main characters--Bo, her sheep, and the gooey wolf
antagonists-- fully realized within the game. Below
is some very early concept work I did for the wolves.
The
most difficult part of the development process that I’ve had to go
through so far was re-evaluating the original proposal once a group
was put together. The original proposal was, intentionally, very
grand and far more than could possibly be done in the 4 months of
production we were given. We had to take into consideration the
group’s strengths and specialties and realistically evaluate our
own weaknesses. I find self-evaluation quite difficult, as did the
rest of the people in the team.
When the dust settled and meetings
among the team and with our advisers had concluded, the final
proposal was cut down to the vertical slice of the much larger game
that we are currently working on now. We had to showcase Bo and all
her unique abilities in her world in one tutorial level and one fully
realized level of game play. The story elements and large cast of
NPCs that inhabited the world were stripped down to their bare
minimum to accommodate our small team size and limited production
time.
One of the hardest
parts of getting started came down to setting
short term goals that were manageable. In any large project it can
often seem daunting to look at it as a whole, so chopping it into
much smaller goals helps get things off the ground. We found that
these very simple block diagrams were helpful to communicate ideas
between team members even though the actually numerical values ended
up changing several times during the project.
These diagrams
also helped with the next step for our team. While the four of us
were handling the game from a mechanically end, we asked additional people to join our team to make some
improvements. At
this point we brought on an animator to handle the lion’s share of
the 2D sprites and a composer to make some original scores for the
game. While the project could have continued without these additions,
the quality of the project greatly improved from their expertise.
This presented a new difficulty along with the benefits though; the
interactions between team members often had to be facilitated. Below
is Bo’s turn-around that I, as the primary 2D artist made, and then
handed off to the animator. This job order required time to organize
and made a timeline pivotal to the project.
Final Thoughts:
For anyone that would
like to start their own project, be it a game or other creative
project, there are a few helpful hints to keep in mind:
Research your topic. If it’s a
game play lots of games and examine them critically.- Be creative with your ideas and solutions.
- Get those ideas down on paper and prepare to explain them to other people.
- Don’t be afraid to talk problems through with your team.
- Be clear about your goals and your team members' goals for the project. Check to be sure they don’t conflict.
- Be realistic with your time and resources.
- Reevaluate your project at set intervals.
The team also
benefited from the time invested in project management and timeline
building to keep everyone working efficiently. There were regular
check points so that we could clearly see our progress and end goals.
-Richelle “FireCatRich”
Rueda
