Independent Study Update #3

This week, I got into contact with another producer to interview for the project, Andy Jih. Andy is another ETC alum who is currently a product manager at TaskRabbit, and has acted as a producer for Evil Genius Designs and Zynga. Hopefully, we will have a chance to talk on Tuesday, but as it stands right now, he is the only other producer who has responded to my requests. I hope to hear back from the other people soon.

In the meantime, I have gone ahead and looked up a few postmortems to gleam a few ideas for the project. The first game postmortem I am using for this pamphlet is the one made for Guacamelee. Many things went for the project. First, they had a clear game design from outset. All of the mechanics and art design came together rather quickly in the process, so everything developed naturally from this clear and solid base. They also made well known milestones and due dates. By making well-publized public milestones that were months apart, it gave the developers ample time to develop and a goal to aim for.

Somethings did not go their way, however. They had trouble dealing with different personalities and having good leadership. Some people had such clashing personalities that they had to be dismissed, which caused a huge disruption in the development process. As for their leadership, they did not set clear boundaries as to what was inappropriate behavior, such as working on personal projects that affected ability to work. Lastly, there was a lack of communication about bugs, so many of them found their ways in to the final game. Their needs to be clear communications of potential problems so they can properly addressed before sending out the final product.