This page will be my self-reflection/evaluation of how I believe the pre-production phase of the project has gone.

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During this reflection, I will be looking back and briefly talking about the tasks I have carried out during this first phase of the project, but I also plan to talk briefly how my group have been impacted by my tasks, and what they went on to do.

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My Planning/Scheduling

I believe that my preparation and planning during this phase of the project has been better than the planning that I have carried out for any other project that I have been apart of before now.

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My planning for this phase of the project consisted of a research plan and a schedule. I used the research plan to note down my initial areas of idea for research (some research tasks not carried out, others have been), and then the schedule was, of course, to help me manage my time more efficiently.

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I ended up editing my schedule a number of times throughout the project (during the project as a whole, not just this phase), as I found that it was difficult to plan out a schedule for a few months of work. Because of this, I made my initial schedule where I attempted to plan out the project, but then whenever I encountered/worked on a task which impacted my initial schedule (such as changing the order or spending more/less time on something), I made a new schedule.

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Problems encountered during this task

The main problem that I encountered, which has been mentioned above, was how it was difficult to schedule weeks and months in advance. Becasue of this, I decided to make an initial schedule, and then make new variants whenever I decided to change the order of my work, or whenever a task took me longer than planned, which allowed me to plan my time more efficiently and accurately. In addition to this, towards the end of the pre-production phase, I began creating weekly schedules on cards, with the areas of work that my schedule didn't account for (such as research tasks).

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I'd say that it was due to creating my research plan and following/keeping my schedules up to date, that I was able to complete the pre-production phase on time. The key part of planning, however, was my schedules, as they allowed me to keep up to date with the tasks, and manage my time more effectively, which was important as I was the only writer and had to carry out and complete all of the tasks needed from the writing department for my group.

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Story/Game Concept

During the pre-production phase of the project, I feel as though I was able to provide my group with a pretty stable and flexible game concept somewhat quickly.

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The very first task I carried out was the planning for the game concept, (which involved various research tasks such as narrative research and concept inspiration), as I knew that the rest of my group needed the concept for the game so they could all start planning and carrying out their work, and so the sooner I had a game concept the better.

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Problems encountered during this task

When deciding on the concept for the game, there were a number of conflicting opinions of my group members, in terms of the game concept. To solve this problem, I decided to develop the main two concepts I had at the time, and then hold a vote, so I could see what concept was more popular and so my group members could have a say, and so there'd be no hard feelings of me deciding on the concept by myself. Due to this vote, I was able to get the final concept for the game/story, that I would be developing throughout the project.

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Another problem that was encountered was after the concept was decided upon. As I began developing the story and got to a point where I had pretty much fully developed the story, there were members of the group who were unaware of the full concept/the changes.

This was down to a lack of communication on the whole groups part, as especially early on in the project (the pre-production phase of the project) there was an apparent lack of communication, with group discussions occurring only when needed.

However, this was a problem that managed to naturally solve itself, as while the project continued the group became more comfortable with the other members, which meant communication was occurring more and more naturally, and so the members were able to keep up to date with the concept/ideas more effectively.

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Conclusion

At this point, the concept was still somewhat flexible, as there were a lot of areas left untouched, but as my group and I progressed through this phase of the project, the concept began to build up more and more.

Now we're at a point where our idea for what to show/create for our final exhibition (in terms of the game) is at a pretty good spot.

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Characters Concepts/Decisions

Another important piece of pre-production was the creation of my character concepts. For this task, I created word/moodboards to show my general ideas. However, I had decided that I'd leave the final visuals to the concept artists, as the two artists in particular who wanted to carry out character concept art were also interested in designing the characters themselves.

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I spent more time than I had originally intended on my character concepts. This wasn't a bad thing though, as the reason I spent more time on them was so I could improve the base concepts to a point where I was happy with the concept itself, and the idea of how they'd be implemented into the game/story (their place/role).

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Problems encountered during this task

As I gave the concept artists more freedom when designing the concepts for some of the characters and models, I feel as though some of the original areas that I envisioned have been lost (e.g. the mechanical steampunk style that I had envisioned wasn't used as much as I was hoping)

However, the problem here was that I didn't want to seem domineering, and didn't want to tell the artists to change their work. This isn't to say that the art/models were bad though (as they weren't), but just that some of the areas in some concepts weren't really shown/made use of, and some of these areas were the few key areas I asked to be included/made use of.

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But looking at the concept art /models now, most still meet the outlines I had given (in some way, shape or form, such as the enemies being mechanical), so I'd still say they're acceptable.

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Another problem that I encountered linked to the timing of my tasks. By the time I had completed my character concepts (word/moodboards) the pre-production phase of the project was coming to an end, meaning that the concept artists didn't have as much time to actually create the concept art.

However, personally, I'd say that me managing to complete this task (concepts for all of the characters) in time was a success in itself, as being the only writer meant that I was required to carry out all of the tasks, which was rather stressful and time-consuming.

But I feel as though I should have started this task earlier to ensure that it was complete with more time to spare. Although the concept artists were still able to continue their character concept art after the pre-production deadline, so I feel as though this wasn't too big of a problem.

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Conclusion

I believe that I was able to create a number of concepts for my characters that were all different and unique, and which would all work within my story. In addition to this, I was also able to complete and deliver these concepts to the concepts artists on time (for when they asked me to supply them with the concepts).

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Location Concepts/Decisions

One of the other main areas of pre-production that I was tasked with as the writer, was the formation of concepts for the different levels, as well as the creation of moodboards for said levels and their locations.

While carrying out this task, I created my initial moodboard which portrayed my ideas for each level all in one, and then I went on to use that first version as a basis to create an individual moodboard for each of my concepts for the games six different levels/locations.

 

To carry out this task, I first needed to plan out the different levels that the game would have. To decide this I ended up having a discussion with my group, which allowed us to come to the conclusion that the game would have six levels (but that the game for the exhibition would have two levels). In addition to this, as a group, we decided on the themes for the first two levels, which allowed me to get a start to forming the concepts of the levels. With this knowledge, I then needed to form the concept for each level.

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When forming the concepts for my levels, I was required to choose from my concepts to make use of the more fitting and more effective concepts. When picking, I tried to go for the concepts that suited the world of the game, but also the concepts that I felt would work alongside the other levels of the game. It was around this time that I decided to use themes as the basis for my levels, which helped me significantly in terms of creating unique concepts (which ended up being the ones chosen).​

Additionally, I decided for each level to make use of a unique theme, as I thought that this could be one of the ways to make the game remain interesting, as the different themes would mean different environments, which would also mean a different gameplay experience.

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Problems encountered during this task/Decisions

There were a few problems that I encountered throughout this task. The main task that I was faced with was forming unique concepts for each level that I was happy with. However, the problem here was that coming up with the final few concepts (levels 4 and 6 specifically), ended up being rather difficult for me.

Eventually, I carried out a research task into Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo, 2017), where I looked at all of the different levels ('kingdoms') that the game includes, and then looked at the specific themes (this being my main inspiration for my own levels making use of themes to make them unique).

After carrying out this research, I managed to create my own concepts for my final levels (that I was happy with), and so I could move on with the task and create the moodboards.

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Conclusion

I feel as though the task of forming my level concepts as well as creating my level moodboards went well.

I feel as though I was able to create a number of different and unique level concepts that would work well in the game, which is what I was hoping to do.

However, if I was to have more time to plan out this task, I'd maybe revisit the first two levels, as I worry that their themes/concepts might be too basic and simple (being a small beach island/village, and a desert jungle). Although as they are the first levels, I feel like it isn't a bad thing for them to have basic concepts/themes, but could be a good thing for the game, as the levels become increasingly different as the player progresses through the levels.

All in all, I was able to come up with six unique levels that would work in the game, and I was able to deliver them to my team within the needed time.