Responsibilities and Key Takeaways

Systems Design

The first major task I undertook on this project was developing out the core systems of the game alongside my other designer. Our intention was to make a First Person Shooter/Tower Defense game where the player can, similarly to games like Bioshock, wield both a weapon and a magic spell in their offhand. After initial talks, I took responsibility of concepting up different ideas for towers, weapons, enemies, upgrades, and spells. Every design was meant to open up new distinct avenues of gameplay for the player, for instance the option between using a lightning, fire, or acid spell. Each ability has its own unique effects, but when used in tandem with the right weapons, can make for a devastating combo.

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Level Design

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Another primary focus of this project was to design out multiple levels for the player to defend against the robotic hordes. My part of this goal was greyboxing out the Laboratory level and ensuring it remained functional as the other developers delivered their tasks and collectively built up the core game. My goal here was to create a more open level design, while invoking a sense of a "last bastion" of sorts, incorporating elements of military bases and battlements.

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Task Management

As far as my primary role as producer goes, I was in charge of maintaining the general task backlog, as well as tracking productivity and ensuring original goals were kept in mind. The way our project was managed was through a mix of Trello and Miro boards. Miro was primarily used as a design and concepting space, while Trello served as the primary task tracking tool that was reviewed every two weeks in a "Sprint Review" of sorts.

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VFX Work

When design necessities slowed down during development, I took the opportunity to venture into previously unknown aspects of development. In this case, I decided to try out some VFX work. Through tooling around with Unity's particle system and some standard assets, I was able to repurpose some effects and create a flame effect for the Flamethrower turret. On top of this, I tried making VFX for the ice spell, thus giving the projectiles an icy "fog" effect to them, resembling dry ice. This was a neat experiment and allowed me to gain further insight into the process for true VFX artists.

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