Week 1 started with us getting the basics of the whole course as well as our primary assignment. Monday’s class showed us that a vertical slice needed to be a build that would allow showing off all four game pillars in one sitting, which means it would have to be much more than just a prototype. Risk assessment was done on post-its, which helped us to determine our possible pitfalls.
Thursday brought us the process of team forming. The professors had sent an email earlier asking us to choose a game concept we liked from last semester’s assignments and pick a specific development role (like art, code, or mechanics). I actually missed that initial email asking for our project preferences, so I was randomly assigned to a group. Specifically, I was put into the team working on Backchat, which is a narrative visual novel based on social communication problems faced by autistic teenagers, and given the role of Mechanics Designer. For the rest of the week, our team focused heavily on researching Oliver’s original game design document (GDD) to understand the base project. Since the GDD was already provided and had its own descriptions of the gameplay, my job right now is just to detail and refine those existing mechanics for development. Analyzing the risk assessment matrix from the lecture, it became evident that we should not attempt to overcomplicate things and disrupt our schedule. First of all, we should lock down our design pillars. Over the next week, I plan to break down the mechanics from the original document so our programmers can start working on them.