Communicational challenge

Key Challenge & Resolution: Navigating Differing Design Visions

• Situation: During development, differing perspectives arose regarding the HUD's layout direction, partly due to team members stepping into design roles outside their primary expertise. These differing views risked compromising the final quality and user experience.

• Task: My responsibility extended beyond pure implementation to ensuring the final HUD was of the highest possible quality. This necessitated addressing the differing opinions constructively.

• Action: I initiated and facilitated a focused discussion involving all relevant team members. Each member presented their viewpoint and rationale. I consolidated this feedback, mediating the discussion to arrive at a consensus that prioritized player clarity and aesthetic cohesion. I also offered to prototype multiple variations if the schedule allowed, demonstrating flexibility and commitment to finding the best solution.

• Result: This collaborative process resulted in several well-considered HUD iterations. The final design achieved team-wide approval and garnered positive feedback from players during testing, successfully balancing various viewpoints to create an effective and well-liked interface. Comparing user response to the previous HUD against the later itteration of the HUD, we saw a clear increase in user approval.

  
  

Technical challenge

Key Challenge & Resolution: Addressing Engine Dependencies

• Situation: Progress on implementing level selection/transition logic within the main menu was temporarily blocked due to limitations in the engine's existing level loading system. The system lacked the necessary flexibility for the menu's requirements.

• Task: To unblock menu development and ensure a robust solution, the engine's level management needed enhancement, specifically requiring script-driven control over resource loading and unloading on a per-level basis.

• Action: I clearly identified this technical dependency and proactively communicated the specific requirements (script-driven loading/cleanup via level-specific scripts) to the engineer responsible for that engine module. While awaiting the necessary engine updates, I strategically pivoted my focus to other implementable UI tasks to maintain development momentum.

• Result: The responsible engineer integrated the requested functionality in the subsequent development sprint. This not only unblocked the main menu implementation but also resulted in a more modular and robust level management system for the entire project, benefiting future development.

  
  

Overal biggest challenge

Key Challenge & Resolution: Dealing with team capabilities and addresing scope concerns

• Situation: due to our small team size and our limited resources we had to be incredibly ruthless with prioritization and using our existing resources as best as we can.

• Task: find what the most important tasks to work on are and only focusing on them and thinking of creative ways to cope with our lack of resources.

• Action: We held numerous team meetings to determine the best course of action, utilising scrum to it's fullest extend to ensure alignment in our team and to enable quick itteration or scrapping of ideas where nescesarry. I personally also picked up various non PR related tasks to cope with our lack of artists and designers.

• Result: We have a very satisfying and polished core gameplay loop which is streamlined and without any bloat. Our engine is tailor made to our game without any unnescesarry parts.