HaberDashers
HABERDASHERS is a console-style arcade (kart) racer where players control miniature humanoid inhabitants of an everyday home, racing past huge household items as they compete against human and/or AI opponents, testing their skills at driving skills and using item pick-ups.
GAME INFORMATION
Role: Game Designer / Team Leader
Date: January-May 2020
Team Size: 55
Genre: Kart Racer
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
DOWNLOADS
Responsibilities
TEAM MEMBER
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Presented project progress, setbacks, and goals to stakeholders each milestone
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Spoke regularly with my 60 team members, not just the leads, to ensure team cohesion and build trust
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Transitioned to remote work halfway through development, then finished the project remotely
GAME DESIGN
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Wrote and maintained live game design documentation
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Created and pitched the concept for the overall game
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Collaborated with the design, art, programming, and production leads to build, then iterate on, gameplay
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Regularly tested the game to ensure it aligned with design vision
Click each image for details and a larger view.
HABERDASHERS - GALLERY
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Game Design
As Game Designer, I was tasked with designing the features for the game. I took stakeholder feedback on how to flesh out categories (such as HUD, Camera, etc.), then specified features.
One essential part of this was stressing the "Why" of my decisions so that such a large team could stay on the same page as designs passed from hand to hand. I used a changelog and face-to-face meetings for this.
EXAMPLE: The tooltips of the game are a good example of my role as Game Designer: after I specified the feature, the tooltips passed between artists, programmers, and designers to bring the feature to life, then back to me for final approval.
Another example of the pillars in play is the cat colors, as they required balancing speed and exploration in order to unlock.
Team Buy-In
Though my choice of game scale was unusual, I was able to promote team buy-in for the idea and address concerns before they impacted the game.
From the initial documentation to our publication date on Steam, I took steps to ensure my team was invested in the game. This included:
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Regular check-ins during in-person work.
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Visits to discipline-specific calls while virtual.
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Attending each group's postmortem sessions and asking for feedback on my performance.
EXAMPLE: The rubber ducks in this image show off HaberDashers' strange scale. Knowing this camera perspective would create a heavy load for art in particular, I cleared the theme with my artists first before formally choosing it for the game to ensure my design was within scope for us all.
Remote Development
When our team moved to Zoom early in development due to COVID-19, there were initially concerns about productivity, communication, and the future of the game. However, my awesome team members met the challenge head-on. I did my part by:
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Maintaining open office hours on Zoom, making for easy communication between myself and team members.
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Regular playtesting via screen share.
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Keeping all documentation up to date.
EXAMPLE: I used both a Google doc to list changes and a Slack channel to notify the team of any updates I made to design documentation, which the team reviewed positively during postmortems.
The majority of the work on our three tracks - including establishing final designs - was done remotely, making communication extremely important.
POSTMORTEM
What Went Well
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Explaining the "why". A significant part of my job was clarifying why I made the decisions I did for the game and why the concerns that were raised were raised. This went well even as the team transitioned to virtual development. As we understood each other and our workflows better, this improved even further.
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Documentation and updates. Bringing the disciplines together each milestone to test the game meant we began and ended every sprint on the same page as one another. This built both a smoother workflow and better appreciation of each other's contributions as we went.
What Was Learned
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Team input is essential. Though my role was that of a lead, I was still a member of a team. The people around me had fantastic ideas, and our game was better for having incorporated their input in as many places as possible as it helped us all consider new points of view and make decisions through testing, playing, and iterating, rather than based on instincts alone.
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The importance of communication. Though all parties did their best throughout, I still saw my ability to communicate clearly and thoroughly improve in response to questions that came up during development. This gave me an appreciation for how difficult it can be to keep 55 people on the same page - and a love for the complex art of making it possible.