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How did Greenlight go?
In Production II, there are about 15 teams, each with their own game prototype. Each of these teams then present their prototype to the whole class of 100+ students and faculty in a process known as Greenlight. About half of these teams will continue, and the other half will be merged onto the continuing teams. My team, Team Beans, brought Crustacean Nations to Greenlight. I was pretty confident going in since we had a clearly defined vision of the game and we were able to externalize this vision very effectively. Crustacean Nations has a very simple premise: a traditional RTS game where all the units are crabs on a beach. This clear focus manifests in all elements of the game, as we have discovered that the mechanics we developed are far more fun than we intended them to be. This success in concepting and prototyping led to a successful Greenlight presentation, and we passed through! I am very proud of the work we have done so far and I'm excited to see what this game turns into.How did Greenlight go?
A snippet from the Greenlight trailer for Crustacean Nations.
The state of development post-Greenlight
As a result of our success during Greenlight, we passed through with two additional team members. Moving from a team of six to eight, we now have an additional programmer and a 3D animator. This will significantly reduce the workload for myself and the other artist on the team. In previous weeks, I have spent far too many hours working on this game, so I am extremely relieved that I have another programmer to work with moving forward. Onboarding for our new members seemed successful. This game is very technically complicated with an in-depth underlying architecture, so it definitely took some time to get the new programmer up to speed on the game systems. We seem to be all up to speed now, and we're working effectively as a team.The state of development post-Greenlight
My team presenting during Greenlight.
I made a controversial decision about the game build pre-Greenlight. While most teams decided to spend their first few weeks developing a solid foundational architecture, I decided to do the complete opposite and purposely engage in questionable programming practices. This allowed us to develop a solid proof of concept to show how the game will look after a few more weeks of work. I consider this decision a crucial role in my team's success since we were able to show off considerably more features than the other teams and solidify our game to pass through. This does bring its consequences, however, since it will take some time to strengthen the game's architecture after Greenlight. I thought this would be a massive endeavor taking several weeks, but after one week of cleanup, the build is already looking better than ever. The new programmer and I took a deep dive into the build and after a single week of architecting, the build is ready for more features, testing, and community feedback. I would consider this to be my most successful project so far, and we're not even halfway done yet.
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