Horizon Down
Producer/Environment & Asset Artist
03/21-05/21
Pitch
Horizon Down is a 2D Endless Runner or in this case... Endless Faller! Players fall through a series of obstacles for as long as they can without hitting too many at once, otherwise, it's game over!
Meet the Team
Horizon Down was created by a group of three, and we updated the project using a GitHub Repository. I took the role of Producer and involved myself in all of the art creation and design, as well as some programming.
What Did I Do?
My main roles in this project were helping delegate the work between our group of three, and deciding who would be best in which position in order to create the best final product. My role consisted of:
1) Leading weekly scrum meetings and consistently performing progress check-ins while maintaining crystal clear communication between stakeholders and team members on the state of our project.
2) Utilizing fast-paced agile project management methodologies to define key project milestones and deliverables using production software such as Google Sheets, Excel, and Trello.
3) Documenting and keeping track of all gameplay issues and proposed fixes via a plethora of playtesting reports, and constantly updating the repository to include any new content.
4) Maintaining clear communication with team members, ensuring that the scope of the project remains feasible, and tracking task progress to ensure that all departmental milestones are met.
Task Tracking (example)
Playtesting Document
The idea was to take note of anything that players said after a few runs, to deduce the underlying cause of their comments, rate the severity of the change that could or should be made based on the feedback, and create a proposed way to fix the problem.
This allowed me to gain familiarity in communicating with a variety of players and concisely ascertaining their various feedback, all while coalescing this information into a sure-fire way to improve our game!
What Did I Learn?
This project once again demonstrated my ability to lead a team and to judge the strengths and weaknesses of my team members while providing them with a solid weekly workload. I learned how to maintain friendly, yet professional relationships with my team members by encouraging them to achieve reach goals while ensuring they do not overwork themselves. The greatest challenge I faced was downsizing the scale of our game, as we initially designed multiple levels that the player would fall through. Even though I was able to create a full set of assets for another level, as a producer, I recognized the gap between programming development and other disciplines and therefore contributed to helping our programmer finish his workload. This taught me how to check in with team members honestly, and how to receive answers that will help me dictate the state of the project, and what goals should remain reach goals.
You can play the game below!
(Please make sure to click on the window before pressing space)