IT NEVER ENDS

Developers: Marwan Mohamed - Ali Saneei - Aunonna Kazi - J Davis  - Ricki Mile

Project Overview -

My team’s project ‘It Never Ends’ is a 2D Dialogue-Based game that mainly explores the theme of depression through a girl who is battling her monster (Depression). Our game took a little over five months to develop with our team of five members.Our game allows players to pick their own dialogue choices, which helps shape the story. Currently, the game is still in a WIP state.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Roles: Game Designer, Programmer, Level Designer, UX Designer 

Game Design Responsibilities -

1. Concepting of the Game Weapons

Execution: I managed and conceptualized the game's main weapons and designs, this involved a lot of research and brainstorming sessions in order for these weapons to align with the team's vision and the game's theme. All concepts were matched with the story and sketched (As seen in Figures 1.1 & 1.2) for our artists to understand the vibe of what we're going for. I ensured to get the team's feedback with each version and design choice just so the implementation went smoothly.

Programming Responsibilites -

1. Scripting and Implementation of new Game Features

Execution: Using the Unity Engine and C# I was able to implement and script several game features, one of which was the delay function, a feature that is required for our dialog system choices. this required me to preplan using pseudocode inorder to understand how the script would function and how it will be integrated into the game's engine. I was able to fulfill the required responsibilities and tasks by actively seeking new learning resources and getting assistance from my more experienced team members.

Challenges Faced and Solutions

Challenge 1: Using Unity with Limited Experience within the Engine

I have about a year or less of genuinely unity experience and since I was tasked to script game features using C# within Unity I was a little nervous

Solution: In order for me to overcome this challenge, I took it out of my way to use extra resources in order to learn and understand how to script and complete my requested tasks.

Challenge 2: Concepting Approval and Design Alignment

As a latecomer to 'Melanos - It Never Ends' team, I had to align my design concepts with the way the game needed. This also required me to receive approval from teammates before moving forward.

Solution: I made my concepting designs an approachable collaborative design where anyone can join in and add on into the concept and this helped me when I had to ensure the rest of the team would like the concept in order for us to create the final design.

Challenge 3: Maintaining Team Communication

As we progressed as a team, I noticed that the team's attendance and engagement was declining, which was a big issue considering our deadline was approaching fast

Solution: A teammate and I proposed the helpful structure of organizing our weekly meetings to introduce our topics step by step, just so we are well prepared and fix our workload management. These meetings overall helped us identify major issues, so the attendance of all members was very much required.

Skills and Knowledge Gained

Throughout the development of It Never Ends I was able to gain alot of valuable knowledge and skills that are not only pertinent to game development but are also very transferable to various facets of the tech industry.

Here is what I gained -
1. Unity and C# Expereince
- Despite me not having a whole lot of experience within the Unity Engine I was still able to improve on my ability to script in game features that were required for our project. I learned how to naviate the Unity Engine in a more effective manner, I understood the required libraries for my scripts, and utilized the very extensive features for game development

2. Game Design Theory and Application
- My role within the team was to concept the mechanics and weapons that were used inside of the game, ontop of other features and ideas that were required early in development, this helped me research and expand my game design principles particularly in creating new and engaging content that overall aligns with the game's narrative and theme.

3. Collaborative Design Skills
- The need for the design to align with our team's pre existing vision is very important and it overall helped my gain more collaborative design skills. I learned how to make my concepts more inclusive which allowed for more team input when making my designs and concepting.

4. Problem Solving Skills
- Complex scripting challenges including bug fixes very much heled me in my problem solving skills, this includes doing research and understanding the issues or asking out for help with other team members to ensure that the required script is completed without any issues, this is such a critical skill and can be used in things beyong just game design and development.

5. Project Management
- Our team orginized planned weekly meetings that are meant to address our plans and next steps for the project but to also be a space to share common concerns within the project, I noticed that our team's engagement started to dip towards the finals weeks of the project this lead to the combined idea of planning ahead of time what were the things we NEEDED to talk about within the meetings, this gave us a way of both understanding how long the meetings would be and what were the things we were going to talk about.  This was a great learning opportunity for me to learn the essential project management skills for any future teams.

6. Time Management and Prioitization
- With a team and a project as big as this one it was very important fr me to balance my project responsibilites with other important school and work commitments, this effectively taught me time management and task prioritization skills which are both very critical in any professional work setting.






 Conclution - 

 Overall, I enjoyed working on this game with the team and I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish, We made something really good and the feedback from our playtesting says the same. I've learned a lot as an individual, and I can't wait to apply what I've learned to other future projects!