STUGA1 – Prototype 1 – Bench Game
You are sitting alone on bench in a park. Engage in conversations with unique characters and connect with them.
Right at the start of the prototyping process both, Lendi and Iacopo started to develop a working environment based on trust in each others abilities. The roles were decisively split into two main categories. Iacopo took over the programming and story lines, while Lendi worked on the art and environment design.
Day 1Iacopo started with getting fully engaged in the different story lines and the character building for the NPC’s which he did on Twine, while Lendi blocked out four distinct characters, that set the aesthetic tone of the game.
Each one of them worked individually and the main brainstorming process and feedback to each other took place durch breaks, since both knew that the other person is fully capable to produce a fitting product in their respective field.Furthermore it was very clear, what we expected from the small game and the scope which was already pretty fleshed out in the week prior, so there was a minimum of effort needed for further ideas that would get implemented later.
So on the first day we both worked very autonomous.
Day 2On Day two the storylines were forming and would be finished during the morning, while Lendi was further establishing the art style and atmosphere the game would have. The art was kept in grayscale for the moment.After lunch the storylines and the four characters were set and done. Both knew what they now had to do.But before being able to work further on the prototype we got great feedback from our teachers, that pushed us in a more clear direction for the prototype and also gave us great tips for keeping the scope in check.While Iacopo worked on the code, using Unity for the first time, Lendi started to produce an indefinite amount of assets to put in the environment. These were both tasks for the rest of the day and thus concluding Thursday.
Day 3The third day, Friday, brought with it a set amount of problems. First of all the code was running which was great work on Iacopos part, but we decided to cut one of the main mechanics we wanted to put in the game due to the time restrictions we had. On the art side of things, Lendi was busy exporting the assets and passing them over to Iacopo.The big problem resulted moments before our presentation, when there was a problem with the player in Unity which resulted in the whole dialogue system to fall apart. Iacopo quickly sat down and in a really great last effort rebuild the dialogue boxes and fixed the system.LearningsWe both had fun doing this project together and also the way we worked together was really organic and almost everything went smoothly except the few problems we faced, which we believe are normal to encounter in such a short time of developing a prototype. Besides this we both are fully in the clear that in another constellation of teams, there would be more verbal exchange and feedback needed, so we know that it is an exception how we worked.Furthermore we lament the loss of the core mechanic we wanted to implement, since it would have given an interesting spin to the visual novel dialogue system.But yeah that basically our working process and we hope that the insights are interesting:)
