The brief for our synoptic project was to create a game using the theme of reflection for a local government authority (in our case, the Tees Valley Combined Authority). To preface, I believe that we could've worked harder on relating our project to the theme, but that our justifications for working with the TVCA were both strongly justified and with historical precedence. For theme relevance, our game does loosely follow the idea of reflection both metaphorically through the fact that the main character of the game, Marc, is atoning for their involvement in the experiments that harmed and permanently warped the main 'villain' of the game, the Conductor. The game shows reflection literally through the use of the mirror dimension, which is a negative reflection of the real world. These together do create a fairly strong link back to the theme, but due to cuts to our game during production, the theme isn't as strongly reflected in gameplay.
As previously stated, our links to the client are much stronger than our theme. TVCA have repeatedly funded and supported local game development companies to create games not just for the purpose of education. For example, TVCA assisted Double Elven in the construction of their current office in Middlehaven, Middlesbrough. Its office is part of a larger development known as Boho. These historical cases of the authority supporting local games studios makes it an obvious justified choice for this project.
Programming has been the premier skill I have used and improved throughout the project. I was concerned at the start that I wouldn't be able to adapt my workflow from working with a text IDE to a blueprint IDE, but it turned out to be easier than expected. Most of my issues with learning and using Unreal Engine's blueprint system came from the strange naming practices and certain lack of functions that required you to use C++ to implement (something I couldn't do because our college computers didn't allow it). Additionally, I've learned quite a bit about team communication and the methodologies used to organise software development teams (AGILE). The failings we had as a team around certain parts of our communication (e.g. meetings) has taught me how important it is to maintain standards of communication, as falling standards results in confusion and mistakes that slow down development.
I personally think I have had a good work ethic in the context of the team. While my attendance faltered at some points due to illness or other circumstances, I would always find a way to do work at home (primarily working on this portfolio or doing some minor alterations on Unreal Engine) and answer questions on Teams. By the end of production, almost all of our intended features were implemented with most cuts relating to secondary / less important features or features that were too difficult for me to implement with the time we had allocated to them.
My contributions to the project revolve around programming and mechanics. I was the only developer / programmer on the team, so it fell to me to make sure everything worked to the best of my ability. I also helped out with implementing assets in Gold Standard while our level designer Ethan worked on some final 3D models and updating the maps for each level. In meetings, I always tried my best to contribute to the discussion and get others involved, which I believed helped to improve the overall quality of meetings and communication on our team.
The biggest lesson I can take away from synoptic is that communication is such an integral part of game development. Games are communal projects that require effort from many people whose view of the game may differ from the next. As such, setting up workflows, concept art, meetings, documentation is integral to ensuring that everyone is on the same page and has the same idea of how the game should end up looking. A secondary lesson I've learned is that I've cemented my decision to pursue programming / developer as my desired role in University and the games industry. Despite my aversion to unreal engine and visual scripting, I have done incredibly well and learned quite a bit about blueprints, which has filled me with confidence that I'm able to learn any programming language I put my mind to.