[The Elevator Pitch]
Crazy Taxi meets an isometric survival roguelike. Players pick up passengers and zip around the bustling city avoiding obstacles and traffic to drop them off, earning cash to refuel, repair, and upgrade their car. To progress they must beat the clock and the ever-increasing debt the protagonist finds himself in.
[My Part, My job]
Because of the complex nature of a collaborative college class my role shifted often across the development cycle, to support and aid the team where and when needed. I was lucky to be able to work alongside 14 very talented and culturally diverse individuals. Ranging from designers, to 2D/3D artists, to writers to engineers, and even musicians.
Engineering: I began the development cycle as one of four engineers, working on the core of the car movement physics. Later in the journey, I transitioned into a Junior Engineer role, fixing smaller bugs and implementing quality-of-life features such as the custom "see-through" material shader to allow the car and immediate surroundings to be seen through buildings that would otherwise block the view.
Level Design: Early in development I had to fill a level designer role. We needed a city for our game, so I designed a fictional playground for our car to drive in. A city loosely inspired by 1950s Manhattan with a dash of Russian brutalist architecture. I carefully mapped out roads, points of interest, player and AI routes, while planning unlockable map expansions, each with a distinct visual language, style, and level of challenge.
Narrative Design: In the ideation phase of the project I acted as one of the three main narrative designers. I focused on building the foundation for the world-building, story, and motivation of the main character so the narrative team could iterate on later in the cycle.
Production: As the team settled into their preferred disciplines, I was allowed to shift, and ultimately settle, as the producer for the team. I managed task assignments and prioritization, acting like the bridge for communications between the engineering, art, UI, sound, and narrative teams.
QA: I pride myself in being able to identify and capture what makes games fun. Throughout the development cycle I acted as the main voice in deciding what is fun and what is not, carefully balancing challenge against a realistic scope. All to ensure that we kept the player entertained, curious, and coming back for more.
Showcase of the "see through" shader
Map view and arrow to destination
Crash at intersection
An early "proof of concept" trailer with horrible captions. (Volume Warning)
As the project started taking shape, I was reminded of how crucial project scope is. At the beginning, we had all the ideas in the world, things like voice-acted conversations, a rich story with original characters, deep lore, and a complex NPC system that would drip-feed pieces of the world through casual conversation. However, we had to scale back our creative ambitions to focus strictly on implementing the core features and key mechanics.
This experience taught me the importance of clear communications and solid expectations. Our team created a social contract and utilized Agile Scrum framework, which kept our sprints efficient and structured. I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn how to deal with unmotivated teammates; it taught me a valuable lesson in professional collaboration, leadership, and the importance of team morale.