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Third Person - Action Arcade Rouge-like
Project Coordinator - Game & Level Designer
Small Dragon Big Appetite is a Game Jam project created during the Charity Game Jam event hosted by Climax Studios, live sent in Twitch
Me alongside 8 other developers gather online to produce a product under 48 hours from the set theme "Periodic"
Since its completion, the game has been self-published and released on Steam, achieving a Positive Review status. It has been played globally and received attention from various streamers, further contributing to its growing popularity.
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Project Coordinator – Responsible for setting up a clear plan and work structure, while maintaining consistent communication with the team.
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Game Designer – Created the Game Design Document (GDD), outlining all mechanics and gameplay elements to establish a clear vision.
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Level Designer – Designed and iterated on level blockouts, ensuring that the level layout aligned with the overall vision and maintained player engagement.
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 online. The developers logged their time, tasks and progressions on the board.
The Pre-Prod Framework I put up went as followed:
1. Brainstorming - As soon as the theme was announced, we divided into teams, and brainstormed ideas in a 2 minute time frame.This went on in 3 rounds to come up with as many ideas as possible.
2. Voting for the best idea - As soon as we had all crampt out every idea possible from the theme, the whole team voted for the idea that was the most Unique outcome and the best scopabe with the time we had
3. Setting up the production plan - When the idea was decided, we used the template and set deadlines for where we wanted to be in the development phase for each hour (Alpha, Beta, ect). When everyone had their tasks and plan structured out, we divided into our specific disciplines and began working.
Between half days during the 2 day Jam, the hosts of the Jam held live stream where the teams updated and connected with each other, to see how production went. Being the Project Coordinator.
I represented us during every stream and updated the hosts of our progress and status during the Jam, while selling the product and the game product to the judges.
Game Design
When the Pre-prod has done, I started to document the whole Design idea into a quick Game Design Document in Miro. I wrote down the initial Idea and structured it with all the elements and balanced it for a cohesive experience.
The game loop went as followed
1. Roam the bunny kingdom as a hungry dragon
2. Eat bunnies and find items to aid your hunt
3. Return to the dragon lair before the sun goes down.
The player had progression as their was different bunnies to eat and different ares to explore, for a cohesive engagement. When the GDD was done and written down, I presented it to the team and we used it as a guide for the games development, so that everyone was on the same page
Level Design
When I had the GDD with all the game rules, mechanics, and design content put down, I started to draw a Level Layout that would enhance this experience.
Sense we had a main feature that was a time frame to return to the nest before sunset, I designed the level so that this would be the core of the entire game play.
I designed so that the better bunnies was further away from the lair., so that the player would between rounds explore the closer Area, and explore further to find the bunnies with more score, while also building their mental map.
After the Top - Down was set of my idea, I went in to the engine and started blocking out. Between iterations, I always played and felt the sense of scale.
My prototype of the level was fast sense we was on a time frame, setting a deadline for when I needed to be done, so that the art team could start Set -Dressing the space. When we had a level mapped out we all play tested the product.
Post Mortem
Insights: Having a great structure really helps with the development, but as in any environment when time is not on your side, frustration and stress becomes a factor. What helped us was in the situation where members felt overwhelmed, communication was always the key, and to work agile in the development and help each other if help was needed.
Conclusions: Small Dragon Big Appetite was the first ever Game Jam that I participated in, and was one of my best game development experiences. Having a well structured start and a template to follow helped the whole team to deliver for each deadline. After the success of the game, this became my first ever self published Steam release, and seeing the love and praise it got online fueled my passion even more.
I will always carry this project with me in journey, and got to sharpen my design tools in rapid prototyping, iterations, communication and game production
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