Prototype Reflection

Team-based Reflection

Working as a team was an enjoyable but challenging experience. We were able to effectively work together through use of good communication to discuss and come up with ideas as well as coordinate work. We were able to appreciate each team member's skill sets. This enabled greater teamwork letter to a better product as we could play to people's strengths and assign work that suited each member. For example, some members were keen to make art assets we could use. A varied team also let us learn from each other and discuss ideas to come up with better solutions collaboratively. By having consistent meetings and discussion, we were able to divide work for individuals to complete in their own time and work together when it was needed such as to put our code together. It was satisfying when our code integrated together to make the game. We also got along well with each with light banter and good teamwork. One thing to improve on would be time management. We learnt it is important to have a leader or members of our group focused on the deadlines to push everyone along. This will be kept in mind for the final submission as it did feel for this assignment it came down to the deadline and we will need to plan out work to do earlier as well as have members keep us on track

The serious game concept was an interesting topic to frame our game around. We decided we wanted our game to have a deep mapping to this topic, but be presented in a subtle and not overly preachy way. To achieve this, we came up with many ideas, before settling on basing our game on one simple mechanic. This would let us focus our game and execute on one premise very well as well as limit the scope to a manageable amount. This lead to our time-traveling mechanic. We liked this idea as it links in with climate change strongly. It offered many opportunities for deep mapping, through subtle decorations and variations between timelines as well as directly, such as through NPC's telling their stories about how climate change has affected them. The idea to make a puzzle platforming game offered interesting opportunities in level design and technical challenge.