MergeMentals

Become the ultimate Merge Master!

Overview:

MergeMentals is a voxel-styled horde survival game where players must vanquish waves of enemies to collect and merge powerful elemental forces.

MergeMentals is a game for the CrazyGames website. A team of five people, including myself, created it over six weeks.

My Contribution:

  • Project Manager alongside one of my partners

  • Main UI Programmer

  • Co-Scrum Master

  • Production Planner

  • Market Researcher

General Info:

As part of DAE Studios’ 2 Games A Month program, our job was to create and pitch a prototype for a game that would be on the CrazyGames website in two weeks. Afterward, three of the seven prototypes would be selected to go forward in production, which would last another four weeks.

For the first two weeks, I collaborated with another person, Vital De Wachter, to create a prototype for a Horde Survival game called MergeMentals. We spent two weeks doing market research to see if our game would have an audience and developing the core game loop, as well as playtesting.

At the conclusion of the two weeks, our game was voted first place by an internal poll conducted to determine which of the seven prototypes would move forward. As a result, Vital and I would continue to work on the game alongside three more people for the following five weeks.

For the five weeks, in addition to continuing my work as the main UI programmer, I also took up the role of Project Manager alongside Vital. I also took the role of Production Planner and Co-Scrum Master. Creating tasks, delegating them, assisting my teammates whenever they needed help, and pivoting when necessary.

Project Management:

At the start of production, we met for a couple of hours to quickly define the end goal for MergeMentals and the milestones for each weekly sprint. I was the main Production Planner for this project, coming up with the requirements for each milestone and sprint.

At the start of each new sprint, we would spend an hour discussing what tasks would need to be completed for this weekly sprint. I would usually facilitate the beginning of this discussion, asking the entire team what tasks they believed needed to be completed and/or added to complete the milestone for this week. Through this, we were able to quite easily tell whether we were on schedule or not by the end of each sprint. However, thanks to my prioritization of tasks, our team was nearly always on time to complete milestones.

Additionally, I acted as a Co-Scrum Master with one of my partners, making sure that tasks were being completed in a timely fashion, checking up with people on the state of their current work, and helping those

One of the biggest hurdles I faced during this project was when our 2D artist became ill and couldn’t come in for two weeks. We managed to circumvent this disaster by quickly reprioritizing and pivoting delegations between the rest of the team. We split the work that the artist should’ve done between the four of us during those two weeks. As a result, we were able to maintain consistent progress and remain on schedule. However, this did lead to some compromises needing to be made.

As our 2D artist, one of her major tasks would’ve been to create and draw UI assets for our game. However, due to this unforeseen illness, we had to compromise and end up finding a 2D UI Asset pack that fit in with our game. While this was a disappointing change to make, it ended up being beneficial in the long run since it allowed us to remain on schedule.

Additionally, I became deeply familiar with Codecks and how it works as a production planning software for this project. I could use it to easily keep track of milestone progress and see whether our team members were completing tasks in a timely fashion.

A Rough Task Roughdraft in Miro

Milestone Creation in Codecks

Game Design and Market Research:

During the first two weeks, Vital and I discussed in length what type of game we should create.

After conducting Market Research and determining what games tended to be popular and what would appeal to the site's target audience, we opted to proceed with a Horde Survival game focused on spectacles.

After coming up with an idea, we discussed the game design at length. We talked about which elemental weapons would be included, the role of each weapon, and how each tier would differentiate itself from the last.

Finally, as Vital worked on beginning the prototype, I did one last round of research on our competitors on the CrazyGames site. I reviewed what the competitors did well and what could be improved, compiling my findings in Google Sheets. Using this information, we determined what pitfalls to avoid and how to make our game stand out even more.

UI Programming:

Our game was quite UI intensive, allowing me to hone my UI programming skills further. I created an inventory system, drag-and-drop function, auto-merge, and more. I also got better at designing at UI, though I still had to reach out to our 2D artist to assist me. However, I’m glad I did, since it allowed for our game to look better and keep players in flow.

Takeaways:

  • Understanding the functionalities of Codecks and using it for production planning.

  • Gaining familiarity with checking up with people and making sure tasks are being done.

  • Improving my skills in pivoting and making compromises when needed.

  • Being able to better adapt to unforeseen changes and create tasks due to these changes.