Firmly Planted - Game Vertical Slice Demo
Project Length: 6 Months | Team Size: Group School Project (5 Members) | Tools Used: Unity, Excel, Miro, JIRA | Role: Systems Design, "Creative Director"
Overview: A semester-long group project to come up with a game idea, complete pre-production, and create a vertical slice to showcase at the end of the semester.
Level Showcase:
Project Description: Firmly Planted is an isometric, 3D, strategy game where players are presented with a grid and a tree as their base. Players manage the two resources of Sunlight & Water and use them to acquire plants that they can place down on the grid to expand their ecosystem starting from the tree. Their goal is to spread their plants across the grid and reach the house where the humans live, and build up enough resources to consume the house. Once they get close enough, the humans will start to counterattack until they destroy the tree controlling the player’s ecosystem. Players can place defence plants on the grid to fight back against the humans and delay them from destroying the tree until they get enough resources to overtake the house and win.
Game Playthrough
Desktop 2023.12.28 - 02.58.08.04.DVR - Trim.mp4Design Process:
Tasks & Responsibilities:
Responsibilities:
Have the final say on design-related decisions to move the project forward
Ensure work is delegated properly to each different team/team member
Oversee all meetings and ensure that all team members have a general understanding of what their tasks are when leaving a meeting
Help project manager facilitate sprint reviews
Tasks:
Create diagrams and documentation to pitch core gameplay systems to the rest of the team before development & implementation.
Create spreadsheets to balance the values of each mechanic in-game
Assist Project manager with adding tasks to the JIRA backlog and prioritizing them during sprint meetings
Figure 01: This image showcases the first iteration of my pitch to the team for our plant types system and a few of the plants that we ended up implementing into the game
Challenges & Takeaways:
Challenges:
We faced many difficulties fitting our planned features within the project’s scope, and it was my job as Creative Director to decide what was a high priority and what we had to cut from the schedule
As one of the team's systems designers, I had to design my systems pitches around modularity in the event that cuts had to be made due to scope issues.
Takeaways:
Improved Technical Writing Skills
Improved ability to rapidly prototype systems and pitch to a team
Developed an understanding of Jira, Notion and the overall management side of game development
Improved team leadership skills when faced with deadlines and high-pressure moments