Producer Blog 3

Hello everyone! 

It’s the producer Nolan again with another update on Gobby’s Farm! Sprint 3 was another productive sprint, and I’d love to thank my team for their hard work and dedication to the game. We’ve been steadily making progress, and it’s exciting to see everything coming together. I’d like to share what went on during the production of this sprint and highlight the big wins my team had. Let’s get into it!

The goal of this sprint was to add some features that were missing in our first electronic prototype, as well as add some ambiance and more models to the map. Build 1 was due during this sprint, and we made some good progress. We focused on making sure the game felt more immersive by adding elements that helped players feel more connected to the world. I assigned 121 points to my team, of which 83 got completed, which is a solid improvement over our previous sprint. This increased our velocity, as shown in this pretty little burndown chart below:

Our amazing Lead Designer, Kaeli, also got some playtest feedback where players pointed out some bugs and needed improvements from our electronic prototype. The feedback helped us prioritize fixes that would improve the overall gameplay experience. Some of the most common issues reported were related to UI clarity and balancing enemy difficulty, so we’ll be refining those elements in the next sprint.

Now to highlight some of the amazing work created by our devs. First off, our modelers made some amazing models and textures that will be implemented into the game this sprint, such as the Eye Sentry enemy, Gobby’s hands, the turret, some trees, and more! These additions will help make the world feel more alive and distinct. Our programmers made great progress on the inventory system and some of Gobby’s mechanics like throwing and aiming, which will be used to disarm traps. We’ve also been tweaking animations to make these actions feel smooth and responsive. The level designers have been hard at work putting the scenes together and making them look pretty, ensuring that each area of the game has a unique and visually engaging feel. Aesthetics will be a big selling point of this game, and we’re making sure every asset contributes to the overall atmosphere. The water that our level designer Miguel made emphasizes this point, and it doesn’t show in this picture, but it looks great. We also had some amazing 2D art be made, and these will look fantastic in our inventory and menus, adding that extra layer of polish. Lastly, we had some voice acting get done for the characters in our game, and I can’t wait to hear them be implemented into the game. Having voiced dialogue will really bring these characters to life and help make interactions feel more dynamic.

I know this was a shorter blog post, but we’re full steam ahead! The devs are really hitting their stride, and I think I’m falling into my role nicely, especially getting used to managing Jira with a bigger team than I’m used to. Sprint 4 is shaping up to be even more productive, and I’m excited to see what we can accomplish next. If you would like to playtest Build 1, it is linked to this post as well as on our home page, along with the feedback form. Thank you for reading, and here’s to a successful Sprint 4!