ISAAC CALON
Project Leadership | Game Design | Narrative/Documentation
One-Sentence: TCIP is an isometric-viewpoint combination of tower defense and hoard mode where the player takes the role of a corrupt 1950s politician that rains destruction down upon waves of huggable, peace-loving aliens (Alyums) as they "invade" his middle-american town.​
Engine and Target Platform: Unreal Development Kit for iOS
Differentiating Factors: Tilt-Screen Camera Controls, Theme
Core Development Team Size: Eight
Complete Project Window Team Makeup: Two Programmers, one Game/Level Designer, one Character Artist/Game Designer, one Concept Artist, one Environment Artist, one Technical Artist, one Project Manager/Producer, one Sound Engineer, one Composer
My Role: Project Manager/Producer, Audio Coordinator, QA Manager, Writer responsible for the quality of marketing materials, and I was the first point of contact for outside stakeholders.
Development Window: Three Weeks
Project Overview
With fewer than three weeks of true production (and only a few scattered pre-production meetings to plan the project), the TCIP team wanted to make a game prototype with a charming, quirky theme that uses unique camera controls. This product would be a step or two above a minimum viable product, and should be easily expandable into a much greater product if there is interest after the initial development phase was completed. For many of us, this project was a resume-builder providing new experiences in online documentation and platform development.
Project Goals
With such a limited production window and many competing priorities, my first steps were to build understanding of the project scope and to empower each individual to create their own job description—we would need 100% buy-in from the team to see this project completed and I wanted team members to be happy with what they were doing. I set individual expectations immediately (30 hours of work a week per person) and outlined the basic plan to reach our goals while encouraging disciplinary leads in art, design, and code to own their team's priorities. We held daily stand-up meetings and mid-week "pulse" meetings to keep everyone focused. All documentation was recorded in an online wiki.
Project Processes
Project Outcomes
We met our project goals and even exceeded a few of them. All of TCIP's core mechanics (touch-controls, camera movement, enemy spawning, player progression, and particle effects) have been proven out, and the satisfaction of blowing up a line of friendly chest-huggers is quite satisfying. The game looks good enough to demo in a controlled environment, and with time and money could easily be built out into a full-fledged iOS title that could be enjoyed by millions.
Even moreso than more typical projects, a short, casual project like TCIP absolutely requires individual expectations and goals to be set, communicated, and maintained across the team. Having team members commit in their own words to hard deliverables is just as important as recording and reporting those deliverables to the rest of the team. In short, open communication is deadly important.
Project Lessons
