This project was created for an Intro to game design course, so there was a lot of learning throughout our team members, through our group structure, and in the actual creation process. The following post will go over the process of how each team worked, iterated, and brought concepts to reality.

CONTENT DESIGN

A major part of the content team’s job was character design. For our playable character of Chester, concept art was started very early in development. The team took the basic concepts and descriptions given during initial brainstorming, and took these ideas into full concepts:

Following this, the content team worked towards bringing these concepts into the 3D space of the game. Through much iteration and learning from the team, two final models were brought into unity for development. With basic texturing and details, these models were ready for shaders within the engine to fit the original style. 

The overall style wanted for ‘Sincerely,’ was in line with other games using Cell-shaders or ‘toon-shaders’. Some games that were taken into account were The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Jet Set Radio. These shaders Added a layer of style to the world and the characters brought in.

The Content team also worked on bringing the environments of chester’s home to life - working on a variety of props and textures to liven up the spaces and bring the story into the environment. Through iteration of models and textures, the final products both fit the given style while also enhancing the final product.

UI/UX DESIGN

The UI department was given two major tasks: Menu Design, and player direction. 

In regards to menu development, early in development the team worked to create concepts for menu’s, motion references for possible polish, while also keeping extremely good contact with the mechanical and technical design teams as implementation began. These UI elements went through multiple stages of fast iteration, with a consistent effort to get opinions of the whole team.

The UI team continued to be receptive of new tasks throughout, taking the needed elements listed by the mechanical teams and providing a product of quality and speed. These elements were increasingly important through the game’s development of player direction, with the creation of UI elements for notification and communication with the player.

LEVEL DESIGN 

The level design team worked quickly to get into the engine and bring a basic layout to the space. While this team only existed for about half of production, the team iterated and experimented with both 2D layout sketches, as well as getting into unity to get the initial layouts into the playable spaces. 

NARRATIVE DESIGN

The narrative team started directly from the beginning of development and began fleshing out story beats, brainstorming concepts for how the game’s story will be experienced, and worked to link the story to the puzzles themselves. 

While not all ideas made it into the final product, with dialog being a large loss, the team worked continuously to try and create a compelling story that linked well with the game’s story, feel, and gameplay. With constant communication between all departments, the narrative team was integral in keeping all teams in line with story implementation, communication, and feature parity. 

MECHANICAL/TECHNICAL DESIGN

The mechanical and technical teams worked together throughout the entire development process to create integral features, fixing major issues, and bridging the gap between the creation of things in other departments, and the final product.

The team worked in separate builds on major features for the early half of development, with all versions funneled back to the team heads for combining and implementation. The team worked on everything from prop placement, menu implementation, version control, and animation logic. With consistent communication with all other departments as well as the bug testing team, the final product took in the criticisms of play testers and worked to create a truly enjoyable experience.