1UP Scheme

Staffordshire University's 1UP Scheme

Summary

Staffordshire University’s TIGA award-winning 1UP initiative is a summer placement scheme that provides students with the opportunity to develop commercialised games within the university’s in-house Bulldog Studios.

In Summer 2023, I was recruited to be the Lead Producer on two commercialised projects:

  • MechHead, a fast-paced arena shooter, which pays homage to the genre’s classics.

  • Mental Block, a top-down cosy puzzler, inspired by Sokoban.

Both titles were successful at the TIGA Games Industry Awards 2023, where MechHead won Best Arcade Game and Mental Block was nominated for Best Puzzle Game.

Additionally, plans are in motion for the two titles to ship as early as the end of 2023.

Read on below about how I applied my production skillset and the impact I had on both projects within my role of Lead Producer.

Trailer

1UP 2023 Trailer - Featuring MechHead, Mental Block, and meetings where I presented progress updates to members of the development team.

PLATFORM

TEAM

DURATION

Arena Shooter
Puzzler

GENRE

ENGINE

Unreal Engine

PC

30+

6 Weeks

Projects

MechHead

MechHead Gameplay Showcase - 9+ minutes of fast-paced arena shooting, including enemy variation, loadout selection, and menu navigation.

Best Arcade Game Winner

Mental Block

Mental Block Gameplay Showcase - 3+ minutes of puzzle solving, including block interaction and the custom level editor.

Best Puzzle Game Finalist

Impact

  • Instilled an Agile production workflow for both games - encouraging the teams to be adaptive in the face of changing circumstances and stakeholder demands / feedback.

  • Scheduled production milestones in collaboration with the Project Leads, such as deadlines for Planning, Pre-Production, Vertical Slice, Production, QA, Polish, and Publishing Assets.

  • Coordinated weekly sprints to ascertain the team’s capabilities and output within a set period of time, which could then be used to determine the workload of subsequent sprints.

  • Established the agendas of weekly team meetings (addressing sprint goals) and sprint retrospectives to ensure that all important points pertaining to these meetings were discussed.

  • Facilitated communication between interdisciplinary Leads through holding daily Scrum stand-ups, which covered team progress, current impediments, and daily / weekly goals.

  • Maintained concise and comprehensive notes for all meetings, stand-ups, and retrospectives to ensure that audit trails were in place for future cycles of the 1UP scheme to refer back to.

  • Championed a people-first approach to development by safeguarding the team’s well-being and organising socials, while acting as the link between developers and project stakeholders.

  • Supported the Project Lead by alerting them to identified risks and subsequently worked together to mitigate them.

  • Organised assets and resources by introducing file structures and naming conventions on Microsoft Teams, and encouraged the Tech Leads to follow the same processes on GitHub.

  • Delegated ownership of features to strike teams, such as Audio, UI, and VFX, which defined the responsibilities of developers and provided clarity with respect to target deliverables.

  • Advised multidisciplinary Leads to share best workflow practices with the juniors, such as Blender for the Art team, Photoshop for the Design team, and Unreal Engine 5 for the Tech team.

  • Assigned tasks on a proactive basis following team meetings and stand-ups, and encouraged developers to update their tasks in accordance with their progress.

  • Advocated for the transfer of people and resources between games where necessary to ensure both projects were on track, and occasionally advocated for new staff to be onboarded.

  • Managed the QA process by collaborating with Project Leadership to create testing documentation and questionnaire forms, both of which provided valuable data for design iteration.

Post-Mortem

What did not go well?

  • Insufficient R&D at the beginning of the project, as issues with Mental Block’s demo version (originally used as a teaching tool by lecturers) were revealed later in the project and required the game’s code to be rewritten.

  • Occasionally, developers would begin planning features and systems, unbeknown to others on the team, which could have benefitted from recentring the game direction.

  • In the case of foreseeable absences, there was a lack of sufficient handover, which led to some confusion over intended designs and impeded progress.

  • Not enough value was placed on asset lists in this instance, so some assets were overlooked during development, which led to delays in their implementation.

  • Some aspects were not considered until a lot later in development, such as Lighting, Narrative, and UI, due to the lack of specialised developers in these areas.

  • As a result of changing circumstances, QA kept getting pushed back from the midway point to the final week.

  • Version control was a challenge, as changes to Blueprint were not immediately obvious in GitHub, so merging builds with undocumented changes caused conflicts.

What went well?

  • The team were successful in delivering two TIGA Award nominated games within a strict 6-week timeframe.

  • Morale remained very high throughout and the team bonded early through shared breaks and social events.

  • Scope was locked in early - within the first week.

  • Early sprints helped us to calculate our weekly output, and this was successfully scaled to meet the deadline.

  • We kept agile and adapted to changing circumstances, such as tech impediments, team member absences, and stakeholder feedback.

  • Production bridged the multidisciplinary jargon barrier between members of the team.

  • Getting to know the team on an individual basis allowed production to assemble strike teams that leaned into each person’s strengths while providing space to grow.

  • Successfully pitched and secured extra resources where necessary, such as 3D Artists that specialise in Blender.

  • In accordance with free software licenses, the team had the drive to push themselves and learn unfamiliar tools.

  • Stakeholders were happy with the team’s deliverables.

What did we learn?

  • Early planning should take place between Leads and Concept Artists to lock in art styles and core designs early before other developers commence their work.

  • Competitor analysis should also begin in the early planning stage to establish our USP as soon as possible.

  • Teams that lack developers with certain specialisms mean that those areas can become overlooked (such as an initial lack of ownership in relation to Lighting), so these aspects should be considered and planned from the start.

  • Pipelines and file structures can begin slipping as deadlines approach, which is when developers shift more of their focus to output rather than organisation.

  • Crucially, in a work week where developers can choose their days, ensure that there is still enough representation from each discipline on any given day to avoid setbacks.

  • Leads should be aligned on prioritising playtest builds, in order to prove designs and identify any issues with the game sooner rather than later through risk mitigation.

  • Effective communication is essential when it comes to changes that developers are pushing to GitHub, so that progress is not lost as a result of conflicting changes.

Software

Team

Bulldog Studios

  • Alex Briggs - Lead Producer

    Alex Konosonoks - VFX Artist

    Alex Mckie - Level / UI Designer

    Alexandra Rizzi - Game Designer

    Arnav Mehta - Lead Tools Engineer

    Ben Gibbons - Game Designer

    Caitlin Fawcett - QA Tester

    Callum Brownsmith - UI Developer

    Callum Roberts - Lead Artist

    Charlie Radage-Revell - Technical Developer

    Chris Williams - Additional Music

    Cristian Cuciuc - QA Tester

    Dan Bond - Project Lead

    David James - Original Concept

    Davin Ward - Lecturer & Technical Consultant

    Filip Lichonczak - Game Designer

    Hollie Tyler - Level Designer

    Jamie Nicholas - Lecturer & Design Consultant

    Jamie Tranter - Lecturer & Technical Consultant

    Jennifer Martin - 3D Artist

    Jingtao Gao - Environment Artist

    Jonah Kirtley - Environment Artist

    Joshua Crabb - UI Developer

    Lewis Powell - Lead Game & Tools Programmer

    Lucy Elliott-Darling - Game Designer

    Mathew Dalgleish - Audio Director

    Molly Swift - Art Director

    Nick Anna - QA Tester

    Olivia Cross - Lead Level Designer

    Sam Dyson - Technical Developer

    Savannah Wesley - Concept Artist

    Sebastian White - Game Developer

    Tabby Seed - QA Tester

    Tom Bloomfield - 3D Artist

    Tori Miller - Technical Designer

    Tyler Timlin - Lead Designer

    Wiktor Janik - AI Developer

  • Alex Briggs - Lead Producer

    Alex Konosonoks - VFX Artist

    Alex Mckie - QA Tester

    Alexandra Rizzi - Designer

    Arnav Mehta - Lead Systems & Tools Engineer

    Ben Gibbons - Designer

    Caitlin Fawcett - 3D / Texture Artist

    Callum Brownsmith - Lead Gameplay Developer

    Callum Roberts - QA Tester

    Charlie Radage-Revell - QA Tester

    Chris Williams - Additional Music

    Cristian Cuciuc - Prop Artist

    Dan Bond - Lecturer & Design Consultant

    David James - Original Concept

    Davin Ward - Lecturer & Technical Consultant

    Filip Lichonczak - Lead Designer

    Hollie Tyler - QA Tester

    Jamie Nicholas - Project Lead

    Jamie Tranter - Lecturer & Technical Consultant

    Jennifer Martin - QA Tester

    Jingtao Gao - QA Tester

    Jonah Kirtley - QA Tester

    Joshua Crabb - Technical Developer

    Lewis Powell - QA Tester

    Lucy Elliott-Darling - Designer

    Mathew Dalgleish - Audio Director

    Molly Swift - Art Director

    Nick Anna - Concept Artist

    Olivia Cross - QA Tester

    Sam Dyson - QA Tester

    Savannah Wesley - QA Tester

    Sebastian White - Game Developer

    Tabby Seed - Lead Artist

    Tom Bloomfield - 3D Artist

    Tori Miller - Design / Technical Developer

    Tyler Timlin - Lecturer & Design Consultant

    Wiktor Janik - Technical Developer