 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Independent Game Festival Finalist: The Guildhall Profile by Jay Watamaniuk
Who worked on this project?
Can you define what a Producer's role on this project entailed?Craig: Led a team of seven Level Designers and three Artists. Co-wrote documentation for game. Created asset and development plan. Created and led weekly class presentations over progression of projects build. Led numerous weekly team meetings ensuring individual weekly milestones being met. Co-created promotional trailer for game. Posted game at NWVault including promotional trailer. Co-created box art and game manual. Co-designed and ordered The Hunt promotional t-shirt. Presented game to industry professionals for The Guildhall "Game Exhibition." What is The Guildhall?
Will: The Guildhall @ SMU is an intensive 21 month graduate program focused on game development. Students can enter one of three tracks: design, art, and programming. The program focuses on individual skillset training combined with team projects. These projects simulate real-world experience by providing students with hands-on training and teamwork experience. Craig: "The Guildhall at SMU is the result of a special and unique relationship between the gaming industry and academia to develop future leaders for what SMU believes will be the 21st century's mode of human discovery and expression. The Guildhall's programs have been built on the premise that teams make games and that excellent games are made by trans-disciplinary teams of individuals that bring out the best of creativity in their teammates." - Southern Methodist University Most of the other entries in the Independent Game Festival were created by one person. How did you handle working with a large group as the producer on this project?
Will: Working on a team was difficult, but very rewarding. The biggest advantage was being able to draw from the many skill sets each of our team members brought to the table. It allowed us to make a very rich and unique world for Neverwinter Nights, including a new artistic direction and some interesting scripted sequences. It was difficult to combine all of the different creative assets, but in the end the project came together very well. I think it would be interesting to see more collaborative projects in the Neverwinter community. Skippy: It simultaneously boosted and crippled us. On the one hand, having ten people in production meant that more could be accomplished. Some people produced game creatures and characters. Some made world textures. I concentrated on scripting and made the side-quests. If I made this by myself, I probably wouldn't have been able to use the giant pile of custom assets we had. On the other hand, a big group means compromise, cooperation, and communication become key. Student A would add a part to the game. And when student B starts adding something they accidentally break student A's work, probably because they didn't understand something about it. We spent a lot of time fixing issues that developed because of that. Despite the problems that developed, a mod like this would not have been possible without a team. Where did the story for The Hunt come from?
Can we expect any further projects from the Guildhall?Craig: The Guildhall is always producing projects. However, the course is ever changing and The Guildhall tries to utilize the newest engines and editors available. So it's not likely that we'll see another NWN module come out of the Guildhall. Although The Hunt making the finals in the IGF awards could change that. Will: The Guildhall maintains 3 running cohorts(classes) over the course of 21 months. Each cohort produces 5 game projects during this time. This includes a wide variety of game engines, such as Unreal, Doom III, and Half Life 2. Due to the ever increasing size of each cohort, it is unlikely that Neverwinter Nights will be used again as a team project (imagine a 25 person module team). However, individuals may continue to create NWN modules to fulfill focus study requirements. Skippy: Absolutely. Guildhall students, as a general rule, want to work for places like BioWare. That means Guildhall students will always be trying to create games using BioWare's engines. The only way to keep us away would be to use a restraining order. Please don't use a restraining order.:) ~
Related Links
Want to comment on this article or read what others have to say about it? Join the official discussion!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Skippy: The best game design training program in the world. Industry veterans take mentor roles, and talk us through making functioning games. I made four in a year and a half. This is not the first award a Guildhall game has been up for, and in fact, I believe every class has produced at least one game that has won some contest or other. The "Make Something Unreal" winners were Guildhall students. If someone has a desire to break into the field of videogames, this is probably the second best route to take. The best would be having the name Will Wright Jr.
Craig: It was difficult to lead 10 students, however the Professors at The Guildhall did their best to guide me on the day to day tasks a Producer would be faced with. My main concerns were to make sure the game reflected the art and gameplay style that we had documented, and to make sure that everyone on the team was hitting their weekly milestones.
Will: The original concept, a pre-history fantasy setting focused on hunting, was created by 3 members of the art team: Sean McLaughlin, Marty Sedfelt, and myself. Zach Hodson, the game designer for the project, then took that concept and created a story based around it. His duties included story creation, game balancing, and dialogue.
