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Gnomageddon is a game project created in the institution of The Game Assembly
Me alongside 12 other developers were teamed up to produce a product within a 6 weeks time frame from a reference game product.
During the development and after its completion, Gnomageddon has now been released on Google Play Store and had the honors of being nominated for Best Mobile Game at the prestigious Swedish Game Awards
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Project Coordinator - Setting up a planning and work ground, and communicating with the team to ensure a finished project for deadline.
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Game Designer - Structuring up a Game Design Documnet, with all the mechanical and gameplay related content, to ensure a clear vision with a fun gameloop
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Level Design - Blockout of Level and Iterating to ensure vision and gameplay engagement for the game product
Play the Game here
Project Coordination
As the Project Coordinator, my job was to make sure we got a structured and effective development. With the teams and projects best interest in mind, I started building a Miro board where we all could work together in an agile work environment.
The Pre-Prod Framework I put up went as followed:
1. Choosing a game reference - Before we started the project, each team was given a set of different games to choose from. after a team vote, we decided Lemmings as the game reference.
2. Brainstorming a game idea - After analyzing the games design and core, we started brainstorming different ideas to our game. After a vote and some pitches, we decided to go with a Christmas theme with the narrative of gnomes rebelling against Santa, the game became Gnomageddon.
3. Setting up the production plan - After we had a solid ground to work from, I set up a scheduled for all the sprints and
In collaboration with our institution The Game Assembly, we had the honors of presenting and pitching our game at the Google HQ in Stockholm and got our game launched at the Google App Store.
Having the success of the product, a submission was conducted to the Swedish Game Awards, and our product was nominated for Best Mobile Game. We got to display our game at the SGA showcase event, and we were invited to their Gala as a team.
Game Design
When the Pre-prod has done, me and my fellow designers started to write a Game Design Document, where we set down the rules and progression for the game, that the team would follow in the development.
The game loop went as followed
1. Guide your army of Gnomes from their start point to the finish
2. Use your Special Gnomes set with different mechanics as help
3. Solving the level puzzle and continue the next level
The player will enter 3 different Bioms in the story, where we put up a total of 12 levels, 4 levels for each designer.
We communicated effectively to make sure the player had a whole and cohesive experience and properly guided through each biom and each level. When the Document and plan was set, we started working.
Level Design
When I had the GDD with all the game rules, mechanics, and design content put down, I started to drawing Level Layouts of different puzzle ideas, that would enhance this experience.
After the Top - Down was set of my idea, I went in to the engine and started blocking out. Between iterations, we always play tested and iterated. Making sure to play test each others levels in the design team, to always keep the core and full experience at bay.
After we had our blockouts tested and fully iterated, we started our Set - Dressing Phase. this included putting out assets necessary to fill out and bring the level to life, after the set theme and style of the product.
Post Mortem
Insights: Having a great structure really helps with the development, but as in any game development environment, new challenges and learning will come. This being my first ever Mobile Game, i had to adapt to a whole new pipe line and workflow. But thanks to good communication and problem solving, we managed to assemble a good flow to work.
Conclusions: Gnomageddon was one of my most fun project, sense it came with so much new leanings. In hindsight, I would have love to polish it more with a deeper dive into narrative and storytelling. But for the short time we had, and the great success it got not only from peers, but also from Google and the Swedish Game Awards, I'm happy and blessed for all the unforgettable experiences that it have given me.
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