Final Evaluation of project

Final Evaluation of project

Once we had been given our assignment to make any final major project we liked, within reason, I soon had an inspiration for a rally car game. I thought a rally car game would be popular with both male and female gamers with a simply enough structure and gameplay to be achievable. My desire was to create a game that players could interact with, and be involved within it’s gameplay and theme. To achieve this I wanted my game to include objects that the gamer could physically control. I felt that the best choice for this would be a steering wheel, and clutch and pedal.

I was approached by Tim and Matt to work with them as a three-man team. I pitched my idea to them, and they agreed that this sounded like an achievable and enjoyable project. We also felt that this project would be beneficial in helping us to gain more skills and experience. This project would involve modeling, art, coding, and game engines to achieve our goal, all of which could teach us new skills allowing us to dive into areas we haven’t explored before. Good teamwork was also an essential requirement if we were to pull this off.

Before going ahead with our concept we researched our ideas to ensure that our goal was realistic. We needed to be certain that we were not stretching our abilities and unable to achieve our ambitions.
We researched by asking fellow students who already had some experience within this area, as well as online forums to see the possibility of making our game.

Deciding which team member was going to tackle each assignment was easy. We are good friends and were well aware of each other’s talents and strengths. It was agreed that I would do the audio and some modelling; Tim would be the GUI artist and also a modeler. Matt’s role was to work within the game engine and script the game mechanics together.
Nobody was a team leader, we had an equal say in how we were going to make our game.

Following our Gantt chart we were able to follow our schedule and progress. Unfortunately it became apparent that due to other course work commitments we were falling behind schedule and it was here that we started to rush our work. This caused the quality of our work to suffer and we realised that we were going to have to make some changes to our original idea.

We discussed our difficulties with our college lecturer. He advised us to create a game trailer and Showreel, which could be pitched as a possible product to a game industry company. There was nothing we needed to change in our original assignments. The end product was the only major change.

With the modifications to our original idea, our workload became easier and more manageable and we found ourselves back on schedule and everything falling into place.
As a team we worked extremely well together. There were no egos here. We always shared our ideas, our highs and our lows. We were able to pull together.

It is disappointing to have been forced to climb down and dilute our original concept, we were enthusiastic about our project and it was a shame not to have seen it through. However, our altered project is still a version of our idea’s that came close to our ambitions.

I’m glad that Tim and Matt chose me as a team member and that they agreed that my ideas for a rally car game were worth creating. They themselves enhanced my ideas with their own input. Working so well together we delivered a project that we could be proud of.