Game Studio II: Dev Blog #4

When I really think about it, I think that beyond anything else, this semester with Not Real Studios has been one of the more challenging ones I had. Between having to pick up Unreal, working with a team of more than 5 people for the first time, and having to step out of my comfort zone in general by doing more level design, I learned a lot.

I learned about communication. I wasn’t too used to the work flow for level design beyond making a blockout then having the artist give me assets to make the blockout look pretty. Especially since I’d mostly been making 2D games previously, I never really had much of a process. However, once I had to work with the artist to get all of the art into the game and put areas together, I realized that there was a lot I could’ve done earlier. I didn’t really start making my blockout with an idea of what I wanted for the area, but more of an idea of how I was going to make a level that fulfilled the need for a puzzle. This resulted in a LOT of work being done towards the end of the last sprint for both the artists on my team and myself that could’ve been avoided. In the future I hope that I can improve when it comes to communicating my thought process and actually talking with my teammates that aren’t producers or designers more before tasks are complete.

I also learned about working with other designers. Before this semester I’d never really worked with another designer on a project. I had to get used to other people taking the lead in certain departments, people doing a job that I wanted to do, people doing a job I didn’t want to do, and a lot of back and forth on the direction the game should go in. It was really helpful having people that could be flexible and take over for me if I was having a bad week or just having a person who can code whatever mechanic I need for my level because I don’t have time and don’t want to ask too much of the programmers.

While it certainly wasn’t perfect, I think working on Part of Me made me a much better designer and teammate. I did a lot of new things, some of which I loved, some of which I liked, and some of which I hated, but they were all important experiences (besides that time that Unreal crashed my PC 3 times in a row) that I can use to do things differently or more easily in the future.