For even the smallest project, I write reflection on the course of the project. Creating The Jelly Reef has been a completely new experience for me in many ways. Read on to see why.

Assignment interpretation

The assignment we were given was in conflict with itself, and that became more and more clear to us near the end of the project. We were making a fun game, but also a game that needed to introduce the different companies that resident in the Dutch Game Garden. In a hindsight, we did a good attempt trying to aim for both byproducts, but the final game has unfortunately suffered from it. The introduction of DGG residents feels like a completely separate entity, outside the fun of the game.

Two things we could have done to cope with this problem. First, if we would have been honest with ourselves regarding this problem, as this problem was hinted to us mid-project already, we could have looked for a different implementation. But the other thing that we could have done is to have the courage to talk about this problem with the client and negotiate about what he wanted us to make and what we wanted to make. Obviously, we wanted the game to be all about fun, the client wanted it to be all about the introduction. Did we fail miserably by starting with a game concept in which these two goals weren’t merged?

Development

Our programmers Jeroen, Bojan and Peter did a fantastic job. Being students, it is amazing what they managed to squeeze into 3 months of development time. And this is simply because of the effort they put into the project and all the extra time they spent from the beginning on, ‘instead’ of at the end of the project. The excellent communication between the design department and the development department resulted in a robust level editor that was designed to make it easy for us designers to create the game. All their time was well spent.

From my perspective, the technical development process was handled fantastically. They used iterative methods to make their own schedule, had a very down to earth todo list and stuck more or less to their plan. Their feature lock gave a good sense of how close we were getting to the end. Every feature in their code was well thought through and was always made with a designer or an artist watching over their back. Although they were still required to crunch in the last two weeks, I am absolutely sure that it was not caused by faulty development planning. Read on.

Graphics

Our artists Tim, Tim, Bas and Sandra have been working hard on every asset or level in the game. It looks fantastic, but getting there was a rough ride. Because of a few unfortunate events, I felt that half of the art team was not really ‘connected’ to the game, and by that I mean that sometimes the artists would create bits and pieces of the game without actually iterating on it or seeing it in action, placed in the game, before tagging it as final. This caused a tremendous workload for the development team at the end of the project, as we discovered that implementing the art assets required more features that we had built so far. But where we suffered most was coping with the feedback issues the game had. More on that later.

Feeling connected to the game is crucial and it is the role of each individual as well as every lead of the team to make sure every single person is working on the game and not on individual assets. Only by putting your hard work in a context can you judge its effectiveness. This is one of the most important lessons I have learned from this project.

But this problem did not just come from faulty personal development processes. More difficulties caused this. We did not have enough hands on building the game, putting placeholders and trying to implement all the cool stuff the art team had created. Three weeks before the deadline, our team was forced to split up because our local Surface table broke down. Also, during the project, my body started hyperventilating as a result of the rough time I was giving myself, and I was required to take a week off for my physical condition, leaving the rest of the team behind without the ‘game visionary’ that I tried to be. Unfortunately, our team was not able to cope with all of these difficulties entirely. It had a negative effect on the game and on the spare time of everyone of us.

Don’t get me wrong; the eight unique, multi-layered levels look absolutely amazing and the animations just make you want to touch the game. Kudos to each and every one of the art team.

Design

Overall, I was not satisfied with the design process that took place for the gameplay content that is in the game. The nine levels we have were also the nine levels we first came up with. Sherida and I started way too late with creating and thinking of levels and that was one of the reason why art was having a huge workload at the end of the project. We also did not playtest enough. There was always the raw fun of swiping the jellies and avoiding death, but I do not feel we came any further. Finding the right puzzles and seeking for fun situations were things I would have loved to do. In this perspective, I think the design department failed. Sure, the eventual game is fun, but we left that more to luck than to thoughts. I feel responsible.

Admittedly, for this project I spent more attention to the code department than the art department. Because of my previous experiences, I felt it was more easy for the development team to lose track of the overview than the art team… which is a pretty common mistake by many developers, under the name of ‘feature creep’. Although that seemed to be less the case for our programming team, I can remember a few specific moments where I could stop them from making more than what the game would require. I think that my focus on the code department is what made me ignorant for the workload of the art for the levels. If I would have noticed that sooner, we would have started creating levels earlier and much more of my idea of a good design process would have come true.

Let me note here that part of the reason we started so late on the levels was because of that hyperventilating week I took off, right when it was time to start working on the level design. As my role was crucial in the two-man design department, not much design happened in the week I had to rest. A lot can or can not happen in a week. That week would have made a difference!

Another thing that went wrong with creating The Jelly Reef was usability design. It started way too late and wasn’t recognized as visual design at first, requiring both a designer and an artist. Not having the right artist on location required insane communication skills from the design department which was more or less impossible. Visual artists iterating on words, can you imagine. It resulted in that 80/20 thing big shots often talk about: in our case, 80% of the user’s experience was created in the last 20% of our project time. People didn’t get it, we saw that too late and had to work very hard on the last moment to make people understand. And to be honest, even now usability could use a few iterations more.

As for motivation design, we had a pretty sweet model implemented into the game, but to be honest… we have no idea whether it is working too. As said before, we did not playtest early and enough.

Project Management

In total, It took us 4 weeks longer than expected to finish the game. On a 3 months project, that is a lot.

What project management meant to me this project was actually people management. I wanted everyone to achieve the best result for the sake of the project. I have always believed that it is the responsibility of the project coordinator to keep all the team members motivated, but this project I have found something that only every individual can do for himself; taking initiative, showing discipline to iterate on your work and killing your darlings. In some rare cases I couldn’t help myself taking that impossible road of trying to help an inactive team member‚ its the feeling that you get when you are given a chance but there is nothing you can do to take it. But my actions to change the mentality of some of my team mates, maybe even their character, were and will always be unsuccessful.

Every department created and updated his own agenda, more or less based on their own workload. We never set milestones based on those assumptions, but I don’t think that has had a negative effect on the game. We did the best we could and we did not need to manage that.

Individual Reflection

As the project coordinator, I feel that most of the mistakes I made had to do with treating the different personalities in our team, expectations of team members and communication. It remains incredibly difficult to work in a team.

There have been moments that I wish I had been more honest and strict against one or two of my team members, but I have seen team coordinators doing that in other projects; it is not the kind of guy I want to be. I think I can be a hard worker, also trying to push the limits of others, but I will always try to keep the atmosphere friendly. I do not want to create games in a social environment where people are afraid to show me their weaknesses. I have seen this going wrong in enough student projects already. I rather deal with the downside, having a few demotivating people in your team and work hard with the rest.

Other Notes

This project I have seen the power of all-rounders. People who are not afraid of looking at difficulties that arise outside of their field of study. From my own perspective I think that I was able to create some very interesting levels because both the art and code team granted me great insight into their challenges and strengths. I saw multiple examples in our team that proved some people to be all-rounders and their effort was really what connected all the departments.

Am I overall satisfied? Yes, very! I’ve seen a lot of people playing the game, putting themselves in the dangerous world of the jellies – feeling good when they manage to save a few, face palming when they fail to do so. And the childen that played it – don’t get me started on that, It will get me all emotional!!! The Jelly Reef is not a finished product, but it sure shows its potential a hundred percent!

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