For a Design for Industry module at University, we were put into groups in order to find a client to a set a project brief.  I decided to form a team with people I didn't know but knew of and managed to get Team 17 as a client.  The project brief was to re-create a game from Team 17's history on either iOS, Android or Facebook whilst taking into consideration the freemium market and platform limitations.

 

I was the group leader in the planning and pre-production stage of the project and each team member had their own ideas about what to create.  After some meetings/discussions, we decided to each create a pitch for a game we would like to re-create and pitch it to the rest of the team.  We took the best ideas and voted on creating Superfrog whilst making sure every team member had an input into the idea.

 

 

 

For the next few meetings we discussed what our skills were and what we could offer to the group.  We assigned each other roles in the group and decided who would be responsible for different aspects of the project.  This worked well for us although we realised we had too many artists and not enough programmers!

 

To solve this, one of the artists said they would be interested in the design aspects and another said they would act as a generalist and technical artist to oversee and try to solve any problems the other members had, including researching ways to fix the problems.  

 

I was appointed as prop/environment artist and team leader.  The final team contained, environment/prop artist, technical artist, level design/gameplay design/client liason, code/script x 2, art director.  

 

I created gantt charts and made sure our deadlines were met as well as making sure everybody knew what they were doing and overseeing the files/folders on dropbox and google docs and arranging any meetings.  I was also responsible for taking meeting minutes and typing them up online and I created all of the presentations which the rest of the team helped to fill in.  

 

Below you can catch a glimpse of some of the pre-production work.

 

Our technical artist created this early demo of the modular environment pieces and how they fit together.  

 

This is a basic level design of the tutorial level as the deadline was missed to create the design I mocked this up using the old Superfrog levels as a reference.  This was changed later after discussions in meetings and dscussions with the designer.

 

My main role was to create props and assets to fill the environment.  Alot of discussion went into this and we explored different ideas such as having Superfrog surrounded by a giant world such as in 'Pikmin'.  After discussion with Team 17 who mentioned this would be very hard to do we had numerous discussions about what the scale of the assets should be before coming up with the final designs.  

 

My designs and final props were uploaded to the art style guide where the art director would add comments/suggestions and any changes that needed to be made to make sure the art style was consistent throughout the title.

 

Here are some final screenshots of the latest builds although the game is unfinished, the team had a fully working title including opening titles, flash screens, AI, animations, physics, a point system, death sequences, game over screens, lives/health impleneted, particle effects and an alternative spud attack.

Superfrog can jump, glide, and throw his spud to take out enemies.