R.O.Bit | isaaccalongames

One-Sentence: R.O.Bit is a third-person 2D and 3D adventure game where the player controls a lone insect-like robot who must explore his ancient, fallow, robotic civilization with the goal of re-awakening his God.

Engine and Target Platform: Unity 3 for Xbox 360

Differentiating Factors: Multiple-Camera 2D and 3D Gameplay, Experiential Gameplay, Scan Mode Tutorial System/HUD, No Human Voice or Language
Core Development Team Size: Four

Complete Team LiveFire Makeup: One Programmer, One Level Designer, One Artist, One Project Manager/Producer, Two Sound Engineers, One Composer
My Role: Project Manager/Producer, Game and Level Designer, Audio Coordinator, QA Manager, Writer responsible for the quality of written plans, documentation, and marketing materials, and I was the first point of contact for outside stakeholders and presentations.
Development Window: Two Months of Pre-Production, Four Months of Production

Project Overview

We wanted to create an experiential game that would immerse our players in R.O.Bit’s world and quest, and we wanted our players to feel hope in the face of an enormous task. We boiled this desired user experience down into a single mission statement.
“We want the player to feel small in size, but huge in impact.”

Project Goals

R.O.Bit Trailer

From the beginning I wanted to run Team LiveFire exactly like we were a small development studio working in the Agile framework, right down to “company” perks and sick days. Realizing our goals were lofty and non-traditional, I set core hours six days a week balanced by flexible Saturdays meant for Sprint reviews, catch-up, and evening team-building exercises. With classes ongoing I took on the primary role on all group assignments, and I championed the “Galactic Readiness Accountability Booster” chart, which provided another visible check and balance for each team member in regards to basic punctuality, attendance, and quality of work. The GRAB also provided an official forum to laud the work of other team members. I put up two prizes to be won for the two highest performers on the chart.

As a team we set high-level goals revolving around project milestones, and then I encouraged my experts to set their own priorities based around those milestone dates. In short, I wanted my relatively small team to be empowered at every moment to focus only on R.O.Bit.

Finally, I held regular “pulse” meetings every few weeks in which we walked through the current design from start to finish, ensuring that we were all happy with the direction we were heading and that we were being consistent in relation to each other and with R.O.Bit’s vision.

Project Processes

Project Outcomes

We achieved our project goals of building an experiential game with no immersion-breaking mechanics, and we were able to implement an effective, thematic tutorial system that remained interesting and useful throughout the entire game. We were unable to meet many of our stretch goals. As we encountered technical difficulties and regularly refocused to address our key challenges in player feedback and guidance, we made cuts to the feature set to maintain our schedule. A core mechanic, several game environments, an in-game collectible system, and the final cinematic were all cut at different stages of production to ensure we could complete the project.

Our mission statement evolved during the first few weeks of development out of necessity as we struggled to communicate our desired core experience to instructors and mentors. In the future I will make the mission statement an absolute priority early in pre-production to inform decisions throughout the entire project. A shared vocabulary among the team to communicate that vision externally is extremely valuable.

Paper design is useful, but there is no substitute for early playable prototypes to challenge your assumptions about controls, cameras, and playability.

Project Lessons