For the second project of the semester, my class collaborated with a computer science class to create a video game. The computer science students had to focus on programming the game and essentially creating the narrative. My class’s basic responsibility was to create the art work. With those two essential elements together as a team we would create a working video game. It was a good experience given the opportunity to work within a team. It showed which team member took the initiative, work habits, communication skills, and flexibility to work around the ideas that was there.
Communication was the key to creating a successful – working- video game. In the beginning stages of the game, there was a close communication between my design team - Charles and I, and the computer science students –John and Eli. Charles and I, wasn’t too sure about which direction we wanted to go into because we were considering the fact that it might not be what John and Eli are looking for. A couple weeks into the project, there was a conversation going on between the team as a whole.
Even though, we were not able to meet as a group many times, we were able to work around it. Most of the time, there was at least one person from each class who had relayed information between the two classes which was great. John and Eli were open to the ideas that Charles and I visualized but most of the time there was a little bit of room to input the ideas that we had into the art. There was one point where we didn’t hear anything at all from them but I managed to get the communication up and running again. Towards the end of the project, there was an open communication – in terms of feedback of the art assets that Charles and I had created. I did my part for my design team such as initiating the first dialogue between John and Eli, sending out most of the emails that relayed the ideas/questions/comments/concerns that Charles and I had.
If I was to do this process all over again, I would have liked to part take in the making of the narrative of the video game. That way the computer science students and the design students could have made the video game as an actual team –together. Rather than just telling the design students – this is what we want. It would also be nice for the design students to have a say in or more ideas of the game as a whole so that they could be apart of the game more.
Two of the biggest challenges of working with a team of developers are communication and being adaptable to the situation at hand. One of the benefits of working with a team of developers is that you get to see the passion that people in certain fields have.
The communication between the other designer and I seemed fair at times. In the beginning stages, we were able to pitch ideas back and forth just to get each other started. The beginning was a little sketchy at times because I was messing around with backgrounds and he was creating characters but then
