Group Horror Game

Developed within a team of 7 using Unity C# as a part of my level 5 (Second Year) course work.

The game takes place in an abandoned goverment building where the player is exploring and becomes trapped. The player must solve puzzles in order to escape.

Development

Organisation

Every project I work on I use applications to help me ensure the project is sucessful:
  • I conducted daily standups with the team, to discuss development, dependancies, and any issues the team was having, enabling open communication to allow reallocation of resources and quick resolutions which ensuring the team was aware of what each member was contributing.
  • I use Trello to keep a high level development plan of the project denoting current development stages of tasks, such as needs development, merging, testing or completed.
  • Gantt charts are used in order to have an exhausted list of tasks, the dates the tasks should have development started, completed and their current status. By assigning priorities I can use MoSCoW to filter and ensure I have the MVP and work my way through optional features.
  • Outlook Calendar is very useful as someone that works part time, I am able to dedicate allotted time on different tasks including social events so I can maintain a health work/study life balance.

    • Challenges

    Whilst this may be unorthodox, it's worth examining the aspects that might carry a negative connotation and recognising my response to them. The project encountered issues that demanded proper solutions for resolution, and being responsive and empathetic was crucial. Unfortunately, certain team members showed a higher level of commitment and contributed more significantly to the group effort compared to others. As a result, the final grades were influenced by the quality of work as observed by instructors, and the issues we faced were escalated accordingly.

  • Attendance - Whilst each task was assigned on Trello and the Gantt chart, over time some members of the team had large periods of absence for different reasons. This required me to reassess time lines and consider which features should be focused or picked up at a later date (MoSCoW), and reflect on each member of the teams current workload and consider changing tasks to ensure vitual elements were developed before resuming their previous work.
  • Addressing Concerns - Throughout the project lifecycle, the team engaged in constructive dialogues with certain members to articulate concerns regarding various elements, encompassing work quality, attendance inconsistencies, diversions impacting productivity, such as engagement in phone games and videos, extended absences from workstations, and instances of desk-related rest. Following earnest attempts to assist in remedying these concerns, the team took the step of elevating the matter to higher levels of authority when endeavours towards resolution yielded no discernible results.

    • Review and Lessons Learned

    After completing projects I like to reflect on what went well and what did not, this helps me learn from each project and improve each time.
    This project helped highlight to me the important of having user feedback, providing information such as animations and audio to players to help them understand gameplay to confirm if they are making correct or incorrect actions.
    When managing projects it is important to ensure expectations of each members of the team are understood and the quality the team are working towards to ensure each member is trying to achieve the same goal.
    With future projects I will escalate and raise issues with concerns in a more timely manner, I orginally wanted to give time to the team to settle into the new position, I should have raised concerns sooner to understand the situation sooner and provide any support where required.