Hello everyone, 

My name is Tyla Chadwick, and I have been the lead designer for Alchemic Crafter. Today, I will be talking about the final build of our game and the overall experience I have had as a lead designer.

It is almost unreal where we are at with the game. We went from having game-breaking bugs to a playable game today. I won't say making a game is easy; there was a lot of planning involved. A game designer must come up with the mechanics for the game, the level design, programming, animation, sound effects, and many more. Then, they face the most challenging thing of all: relaying the idea to the team, which requires a lot of patience and learning. This is where I talk about what I had the team do and the process behind it.

I knew coming into this position that I wanted to stay the closest to industry pipelines that I could manage within the short timeframe we had to work with. I wanted to do this for the success and future success of my team members. I have always had the mindset to help others flourish rather than trying to be competitive. 

The first task was the 3d art of the game. I wanted this game to give a calm and serene feeling, but I also wanted to be efficient. In the first sprint of kickoff, I gave modelers some concept art to go off of that I had collected prior. I wanted to do this to pave the road for success in achieving our overall art style. Alongside this I gave individual polycounts for the planned models for the game so that they have an idea of the general area that they should rely on for certain objects. I used my knowledge from talking to people in the industry. I found great success in this method. My modelers never seemed confused, and they flourished from this. If they had any hesitation or were stuck, they came to me for advice. 

One advantage we also had was we had a concept artist who was ambitious for work. We were lucky in this because it helped out with my original goal of keeping things as close to the industry as I could based on the setting. Our concept artist was able to create stunning visuals for our game and our modelers. Not only did she do great concept art for modelers, but when I mentioned how I wanted the UI to look in the game. UI tends to seem plain in games to my eye; I wanted something to stand out that the player could think to themselves even for a second, "Wow, this is so pretty!" and she was able to achieve exactly what I had in mind. We had a player comment on the UI's beauty, which meant that the goal was met.

Because these both go hand in hand, The modelers were able to meet my desired aesthetic for the game with minimal struggle. I wanted this game to not only be a calm and cute environment but I also wanted it to be witchy and whimsical. By this final build I believe we did just that. The best part overall was that we never had complaints about the art; we only ever had praise for it, and it was what kept playtesters wanting more. 

The second task was starting the level design aspect. For the level design, I knew I wanted there to be a total of three areas that the player could explore. Exploration is a key part of what many players want. I focused on the aspect of the individual players' preferred playstyle within our feedback forms, and 95% of players were explorers. 

I didn't want the players to be able to access each area without challenge, so this is where the design decision for the Faebury Forest comes in. I had the level designers focus on placing trees in a manner where it blocks certain areas from the player being able to walk through. That was the setting for the Forest. Next, we implemented vine walls that had a requirement for the player to go into Faebury Forest. We did this so that there would be a challenging aspect of the game; to elaborate on this, we also hid the rare materials within the Forest. So, if the player desired to craft a specific decoration, they had to go collect it from the Forest.

Faebury Forest also provides the player with a visual reward. Since the level designers spent a lot of focus on this area it is the most whimsical area out of the three. Players tended to like Faebury Forest the most because of the vibrancy of the area and how it really did fit with a forest theme. Our level designers did a great job incorporating the visual read for a forest. 

The third task was programming. For this game, I wanted the main focus to be where players were able to decorate their home area, and I wanted to be sure that they felt they had freedom. To achieve this would be one of the most challenging aspects of the game by far. We had to have a working crafting system which our lead programmer was able to create. The aspect of exploring and crafting prolongs the gameplay so it was a necessity for our core loop. The next part was incorporating a build mode in which players had the freedom to place the objects where they wanted to. 

When I say that my programmers took what I said seriously, I mean it. By this build we have a build system that is better than I could have ever hoped for. The communication with me by our programmers was definitely a huge strength, and we all helped each other learn. We also had a lot of patience with each other to get ideas across that were admirable. Our decoration system has received a lot of praise in the last two builds. We have so much freedom, and with decorating being the biggest focus, I was so happy seeing the feedback mention how the building was fun. 

Additionally, with the programming, we also were able to incorporate fun interactions, such as a potion bottle that could turn statues into NPCs. The reason we incorporated this design decision is we were faced with the term of scoping down, which is how we meet our deadlines. It is easy to get over ambiguous with a timeframe. Making an NPC that does not have dialogue and only moves around is simpler than the attacking mechanics we had planned. Originally, we implemented the cursed boar since the mechanics for enemy interaction were the more intricate of the three. Which, I know in my heart, the players will be so happy to see. We frequently had feedback on what the players would like to see, and there was so much feedback where people wanted to just "hang out" with the enemies that this was a design decision I was so proud that we could achieve. 

The last task was animations. With our setting, I was unsure when developing our game if we would get an animator. The lack of animation planning was my shortcoming; however, our animator had a lot of patience with me. I was able to think of my goal for animation. I knew I didn't want to get too over-ambiguous in my planning for the animator because it takes a lot of time to perfect animations. My thought process is I would like a few really good animations rather then a lot of filler animations. Because of this, I was able to make a list where the focus of the animation is on enemies and NPCs rather than the environment. Players often notice moving objects more than stagnant, so putting the focus on our characters was the best path to success. 

Now, we have the reflection. What went wrong? 

Well, there were quite a few things, but I will mention two of the biggest. One was that at the start of development, I had a skewed view of the art style expected from modelers. I wanted everything to be stylized and cute; however, I realized my standards were extremely too high. Modeling is similar to drawing. Everyone is on a different level of experience; some even have different styles entirely, as well in our setting, some modelers haven't had the time that I have had for their skillset. Because of this skewed perspective, I had to be more malleable when it came to models, and if we really struggled, I had to give some advice or direction to ease some of my modeler's worries. Which, luckily I had the resources needed to be able to help our modelers become more confident in their abilities. This, was where you learn patience and understanding as a designer. Help pave the path to success, not the path to failure. A kind hand goes far when leading.

The second aspect of what went wrong brings us to the programming team. I will take full accountability for this issue. When they were faced with the decoration system, I wasn't very elaborate on what I wrote in our game design document (the foundations of our game that get the idea across to the team). There were a lot of questions, and when I realized that there was a lot more to a placement system, I panicked. Luckily, our programmers were again very patient with me and understanding. We were able to navigate around the issue to meet an even better placement system than I could have ever hoped for. I would say this was the biggest problem I had faced because, if I am honest, I know very little about programming. However, our team is so great that they picked me up when I felt like I failed them and laughed it off. This is where I learned it is okay to fail sometimes.

Now, what went right? 

We had a lot of aspects that I would say went right. Firstly would be our organization and the followthrough of our team. We had a great workflow for the modelers and concept artists from start to submission that allowed our level designers and programmers to find assets to place in the environment relatively easily. I can happily say we very rarely had a level designer or programmer ask where a specific asset was. 

We had ambitious programmers who were able to make a UI that was relatively easy to navigate through, decoration systems that players enjoyed immensely, and enemy interactions, as well as working animations for them that players highly enjoyed. These mechanics were what kept the players coming back to our game the most. 

We had some really cute and amazing enemies modeled and rigged by our character artist that we as a team love, and players love. Many players had made kind comments about our critters, pertaining that they were almost too cute to kill. (and yes, all those playtesting players did, in fact, kill the enemies and had fun with that as well.)

Lastly, we had an environment for the game that fit the desired aesthetic that I had been hoping for since the beginning of game planning. We met that whimsical, calm, and serene environment I wanted to achieve.

Next, is what would we have done differently?

I would say the biggest thing we would do differently is ensure that programmers are making test builds more often and that we would playtest the test builds more often. When we started, I was the only one testing the builds, which was fine, but it left errors for me to miss certain bugs that I didn't see. I feel like we would have had more efficient bug testing if there would have been more members on our team playtesting a lot sooner. I also would add that we would focus more on fixing bugs than adding in more components, which was an issue we did face.

Another thing I believe we should do differently is the organization of the game design document to be able to incorporate it better by using a confluence page so that all team members have easier access to the information. I did not know our program, Jira, had a confluence section until about two months in. Because I learned this late, we sadly were unable to get it up and running due to my original workload those first two months. I would also add sections into headers for the system sooner so that our team could access the information they needed a lot easier than having to read a giant (57 page) document.

Lastly, what would we do again?

We would definitely use Discord again for communication. At the beginning of the semester I had set up a discord channel for our team to communicate in. I found great success in this method because it allowed us to work at home rather than meet up after hours, which boosted our work ethic, so we were able to get a lot more work done at great efficiency. A lot of our team had better computers that they were more comfortable working on. I have consistently seen how people get more work done at home than in an outside setting me being one of those people. I saw great strength in this method.

Another thing we would do again was something I had touched on a bit earlier. We would stick with what we started incorporating around build three. We would start doing test builds a lot sooner and playtest those test builds more often. The reason we would stick with this method is that we found it was more efficient to be able to find bugs and get them fixed sooner so that playtesters have a more enjoyable and less frustrating time.

Overall, I learned a lot as a designer. The biggest thing was to be malleable when issues arise and to be understanding. I am and always will be proud of what we did today and my team. I hope that my team feels the same way. Regardless of the issues we faced and areas where we felt defeated, we always got back up and tried harder. We worked together to fix these issues, and never once did I hear from anyone or even say to myself that we wanted to give up. I am hoping that with the members who want to stay with me, we can bring more games to enjoy in the future. 

As always, thank you all as well; without your support, we also would not be where we are today. Thank you for being a part of our journey, and here I say a heartfelt goodbye.