itch.io

It's nice to come away from the project with new knowledge. It is also nice to hear that you had a plan to begin with, even if it didn't follow through completely. The game I saw was very impressive, and I'm glad to know that development was an experience that you'll be taking forwards.

Yeah, having a single programmer familiar with the implementation often does set a delay, with them both having to juggle adding new features and adding the assets of the game. That, in addition to fighting against your roles, I hope that your team is still proud with the result over the course of development. 

You should be very proud of your final product! I can't imagine having a system of active, fake chat members react to gameplay is an easy thing to implement. Nice work keeping ahead of coding so your team had the tools to get what they had done and implemented. 

I don't think I've heard much of other's discussing the "fail faster" approach. At least, not as openly as you have! I don't suppose you were able to get the music in for the playtest? The player feedback can definitely help define if the track is the vibes you're going for. Or if it's way past your "repetitive and annoying" (positive) to the point that it's "repetitive and annoying" (negative). 

It's great to hear that cut features won't completely destroy the game experience. It's always disheartening to hear that some things didn't make the cut. Hopefully the communication between your team allowed you to make proper assumptions on how the AI would move and exact metrics. And, in the worst case scenario where it doesn't work, hopefully the fixes are minor.

It appears that we had a similar input in terms of gathering lighter workloads. It is very nice to know that our teams are so agreeable and capable. It was almost intimidating personally to have a team so capable in carrying work on their shoulders. Splitting the work for the playtest is not a bad idea to ensure everyone knows its contents. My group is personally having one person focus on the playtest documentation so the rest of the members can continue to have the build playtest ready.

It must be very rewarding to see the game come to life! It was incredible for my group to see how dynamic everything got once assets were added to our levels. Definitely helps to push through the heavy workload days. It also seems that things are smooth sailing with your group, which is also great to hear - I can only assume the energy of seeing the game come to life is also infectious. 

The energy and eagerness of your team will definitely help bring life into the project. Makes me excited to see how it turns out! Might I suggest keeping focus on that vision of what you want out of the project. It will help your team figure out what you're looking for during that first playtest! 

It's nice to know that we aren't the only team reviewing and refreshing - shifting workloads and deadlines to fit our new schedules is important for consideration. Has your team thought of what you want to learn from your playtest? A script or checklist could be a good basis to identify just exactly what you want done and tested for your build, especially since you already have a prototype. 

Completely agree, this semester really helped planning for major milestones and major risks that we might encounter during development. I was also in a similar situation where it became a lot smoother to recognize the game in its entirety. And, of course, this was a great time to get to understand teammates. It’s nice to hear that you’re inspired to work over the break to sharpen your skills for your team!

You were very fast in getting a prototype ready. I can only imagine what your team schedule looks like at this type of pace. Though, you mention that you still need to make a schedule - is it a personal one? Or has your team not made a schedule yet? Regardless, I agree that having those deadlines will really help push to complete the game.

Sorry to hear that the Trello board fell through. It can be hard without someone dedicated to keeping on top of it, or if team members responsible forget that it exists. It's nice to hear that it's being reimplemented! I hope things get back to smooth sailing.

I'm glad your team was able to agree to group roles, it's always good to be organized. Given the time you had, you did very well in pitching your idea. I would've loved to see the story of your game and how it would serve as education for social media addiction and FOMO.

Sorry to hear that the time reduction had potentially messed with your pitch as well. I'm glad that you were able to get valuable feedback before the team started on a game potentially too big for the time given. And very good planning, for those in-person meetings to keep on top of the work everyone is doing.

Interesting pitch!

The idea of taking a a management simulator of sorts and merging it with the idea of misinformation makes for quite the tricky slope for players, especially depending on how easy the misinformation is to spot. Additionally, seeing the direct consequences of the player's actions also on social media makes for immersive gameplay. I also like how you've made direct reference to current politicians and misinformation spread by them.