Now that the second Rapid Ideation session is complete, it is time to look back and reflect on it.

Execution

During the theme reveal webinar, Jamie White suggested we should jump into the action and start creating things rather than drown ourselves in planning. I took his suggestion and only created a short high-level plan of what the game would include rather than the more in-depth mechanics planning I did in the first session.

Similarly to the last Rapid Ideation session, I used LetScrum to track my work.

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Instead of splitting my work in two for each of the weeks before starting, I went ahead and started prototyping the game with the full list of tasks in front of me. By the end of the first week, I had roughly completed half of the tickets I had on the board.

I focused on the basic functionality and structure of the game, which provided me with a solid foundation for the second week of prototyping. I used multiple free and paid assets to help me achieve that. Firstly, I used the Random User API to get a new random persona for each new employees. I chose one of each gender to use at the intro section of the game to set the scene for the player and then call the API every time a new employee is hired. Secondly, I used the Modern UI Pack by Michsky from the Unity Asset Store. It provided me with good looking UI assets to build the game without the need for me to spend time creating them. Additionally, I used the 2D Backgrounds Pack by Chicken Games for the background sprite.

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During the second week, I implemented the rest of the basic functionality and added the main menu. Before the end of the Rapid Ideation Session, I had the time to implement one of the tickets I had in the "Random events" category. I added the ability for unhappy employees to leave the company, which incentivises the player to maintain high happiness. This feature in combination with the increasing effectiveness of the long-serving employees creates a solid base for additional mechanics to be implemented in the future.

You can check out a preview of the first couple of minutes of gameplay below.

Goals

At the start of the Rapid Ideation session, I committed to the following two goals.

In this Rapid Ideation Session, I tried to integrate the learnings from the first one. I committed to two goals instead of three and paid special attention to make all of them achievable. As a result, I managed to complete both of them.

I am really glad I managed to create my first 2D game. This goal was important to me because the idea I have for my final project is a 2D rogue-like game. I will need to further develop my skills such as creating tilemaps, designing and implementing rogue-like games. I am hoping the Ludum Dare game jam happening at the end of April will allow me to work on a game that needs those aspects, however, I still have a lot of time to expand my skill set before beginning my work on it.

My second goal was to include incremental aspects into the game. I have included those with the company growth, employee happiness and performance. I took time to come up with a formula that makes these mechanics feel good to the player and ensure the numbers don't explode into the millions quickly. These also ensure that the game is not "idle", requiring the player to interact with the employees' salaries.

Additionally, I had set two more goals to complete during this Rapid Ideation Session in the Week of Reflection blog post.

The first one of these goals I didn't achieve. I spent more time on choosing the problem I will be attempting to solve and jumped quickly into the prototype. I will be taking this goal forward. At the end of April I will be taking part in the Ludum Dare game jam with students from the Development Practice course and it would be a good avenue to achieve this goal.

In this prototype, I focused a lot of player introduction with a scripted entry into the game and designing the interaction of the different systems in the game. In my opinion, this completes the second goal I had set, to give game design more focus.

Summary

I consider this Rapid Ideation Session to have been highly successful for me. I achieved most goals I set at the beginning and gained valuable core knowledge that would propel my skills to the point where I would be able to complete my final university project.

References

Randomuser.me. 2021. Random User Generator. [online] Available at: https://randomuser.me/ [Accessed 2 April 2021].

Unity Asset Store. 2021. 2D Backgrounds Pack. [online] Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/2d-backgrounds-pack-188495 [Accessed 2 April 2021].

Unity Asset Store. 2021. Modern UI Pack. [online] Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/gui/modern-ui-pack-150824 [Accessed 2 April 2021].

Unity Technologies. 2021. Unity. [Software]