Technobabble
Technobabble is a third-person Action Platformer focused on fluid, free-flowing movement. Players control the music loving Juno, as she skates, grinds, and tethers through a Solarpunk-themed city. On their journey players will encounter the Remix Police trying to stamp out creativity. Utilizing Juno’s move set, players can land combos and tether off of enemies as they prepare to free the city from the 2 Remix Police Bosses.
As a Producer on Technobabble
Project Management
I managed a team of 10 at the start of the project which grew into 20 halfway through the project. The team included programmers, designers, artists, an audio designer, and outsourced music producers. I created and assigned tasks for each team while communicating with the team leads for the accuracy of requirements. Additionally, I reviewed the tasks, gave feedback, and thoroughly listed bugs by severity with a description of how to recreate the bug. My initial major contribution to the team was writing the Game Design Document (GDD) and Team Contract with the creative director. Additional documentation I provided and maintained: the Product Backlog, Gantt Chart, and a task checklist in Excel for managing hours spent on each task.
Communication
As the game developed, I oversaw revisions to the GDD and Art Style Guide based on meetings and feedback received. Revisions to the documentation were discussed with teammates through meetings and Slack. With the size of the team growing to 20, I added a bot to Slack to schedule daily standups for ease of response and tracking. Each week I would have a Scrum meeting based on team members’ schedules to log progress and identify potential blockers. I held additional meetings for each team and at times individuals based on potential problems and updates to the projects.
Problem Solving
Some of the original features for Technobabble included rhythm combat and 5 levels (excluding Boss arenas). Throughout the development of the rhythm combat feature, it became a blocker for programmers and designers, with designers struggling to keep the pace of platforming that was originally intended for the levels. To allow for easier development of enemy encounters and give programmers enough time to complete other high-priority tasks, the rhythm feature was removed from the player and reincorporated into the environment. Additionally, the goal of 5 levels was reduced to 3 in order to meet our schedule in time and properly craft the critical path for the game. To further assist in the project, I implemented art assets and their materials into Unreal Engine 4 as some of our artists had previously only worked in Unity.
