I set here in my quiet room, the morning after presentations for all the capstone games that want to be considered for production next semester. It feels like such a stark contrast to my life less than 24 hours ago. With the final breath of relief from my team, and the applause of our peers and professors, suddenly everything was more or less done and waiting. Yes, there still lies demo night happening later today as well as the faculty decision right after that on which games go forward and which games are cut, but that feels like such a small hurdle now. This past week, no matter how much my team or I prepared, was crazy as we scrambled to put all the pieces together. The game, while not in a bad state before, desperately needed polish attention put to it for starters. My back-end programmer, designer, and artist put significant hours toward that goal through the week. Meanwhile, my front-end programmer was designated primary presenter. I was there to assist in all of this, wherever I could, and to make sure everything was ready and in order for presentation time and the demo night. I always try to eliminate crunch at the end of a project timeline, but it seems that crunch is simply something that can only be minimized at best from my experiences here in the game studio. This semester, I felt like most of the teams decisions were correct, but we still ended up having to do a heavy week of crunch to get the game where it needed to be. In that regard, I feel as though I failed my team to a degree. With better planning and tracking, the issues we addressed this week could have been spread out more through the semester. Even if that is true, I doubt we would have been able to take it easy this last week. There would still have been other areas we felt needed to be addressed, other polish needed to make us proud of the product. This is the curse of working a creative project - there is no real end. Improvement can always be made.
I spent the early parts of this sprint setting up my teams presentation. I chose backgrounds and fonts that fit our theme, set up slides with key points or areas we needed to hit, and wrote the script for our speaker. I felt useless when it came to supporting the team members who were cranking away at the build. All I could do was be there for them and encourage them as they plugged away each late night. People tell me that my willingness to stay up with them is what proves that I'm a good producer, but I feel that if I was truly a good producer, they wouldn't have had to stay up late to begin with. The team did decide, and stick to, a build cut off time on Friday. Once midnight hit, we wrapped up what we had and called it "good enough." We needed to rest and to test the build as it was, and prepare ourselves for the presentation and demo nights. We took that build to QA on Saturday with no form for testers to fill out. We simply asked them for their feedback, be it good or bad, and wrote down those results. This test was not for making changes, but rather to prepare for demo night and when professors play and potentially provide those same criticisms and praise. We want to be ready and able to talk on each point that may come up.
The presentation itself was a nightmare to prepare. It changed, then changed again, was critiqued and then changed and re-written again up until about 2 or 3 hours before it was time to show it. I made my team practice their parts for the last 2 hours without much rest. I know it may have been harsh, but I wanted them to know it and feel prepped beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even with all the work, my heart still felt like it was going to punch through my chest when the first game team presented. I wish presenting wasn't so difficult for me.
The presentation went off relatively smoothly in the end. I'm happy we reworked it and I'm happy we tested the technology we had to work with ahead of time. That part was at least very solid. All that's left is demo night - I know that my programmer and artist will show our game well. Whatever happens after that will be what it is. Of course I believe my team has a good shot at going forward into production and of course, I want us to. I also feel that regardless of that outcome, we worked and created something that we could be proud of this semester. If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't have worn the title on my back or the team logo over my heart.
This team is the best team I've been on so far and each of them deserves all the respect and praise I can tout toward them. I think that a producer does make a difference on a project, but in this case, it's my team that made me look good through their dedication to the project and each other. If we move forward, I hope that we can carry that dedication and dynamic forward so that each new team members also carries dedication toward the project and team. For now, this single night stands before us. I'll be waiting up late for the results.