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“Problems can arise at any point in the media making process, particularly when there are multiple people involved who can introduce more variables that you cannot control, forcing you to think on the spot when errors do arise.
This was especially true while I as studying a subject called ‘Games Lab’ during my Bachelor of Arts. This unit turned my whole class of approximately thirty people into my development team for the whole semester. If we passed, it would be together; likewise, if we were to fail.
Our goal and the overarching assignment was to create an augmented reality game which utilised multiple key components of game development (for example art, design, and programming) but resulted in a multi-faceted new media experience. During week four of eleven, the leader of the programming team simply ceased attending class and refused to communicate. At this point, I, as the leader of the design team, decided to repurpose the assets we had made for a web application to create a card game to demonstrate our understanding of the assignment criteria. Collectively our efforts resulted in a class-wide pass and a personal high distinction.
In the event of issues arising it is pivotal to identify what is likely to happen and from that what you can do. Moving from that point, it is important to be honest, functional, and efficient in order to make the most of what you have. While working keeping communication open to nip other hurdles as they come.”
The text above is lifted from a job application in which I had to respond to key selection criteria labelled, “excellent problem-solving skills”. The scenario in question places me as a nineteen-year-old who was in my second year of university back in 2012. It’s my go-to story for nightmare group work.
Upon reflection, it was certainly was not an elegant or nuanced way of tackling the issue of losing a few key people in the face of a major assessment task, but it seemed like the only choice at the time. The unit was designed to represent and reflect similar hierarchies and challenges to a medium-sized indie game studio.
It began with design students, which included myself, pitching concepts for the ARG we would work on for the semester. I helped pitch what we ended up voting in. A location-based scavenging game featuring basic combat. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, players would come to campus to specific locations to find limited servings of food or other items like weapons or medkits. In theory, you could engage in combat to raid another player’s inventory and eventually kill. Oh, our major selling point the game destined you to become cannibals by design. Fun times. Announcements from a mysterious Benefactor were going to be a feature as well, but due to our other development woes we never even began to deliver on that promise.
Our concept won by a slim margin. Survivalism became our title, and eventually our mantra. (Everything was so dramatic when we were young.)
Department leads could either be self-nominated or voted in by one of your peers. This was probably one of the sole reasons that we made any headway with this project. It was clear who made the last judgement call before a class or meeting wrapped. Which was pivotal given how large the groups were even when reduced to each department. While the work produced varied wildly from week to week and from person to person the developers who were still trying to patch up the wreckage quickly discovered who was reliable, who was phoning it in and the remaining dead weight.
After we pushed it to an extreme this course was changed to feature smaller groups, the overarching assessment was adjusted to favour better-made games/experiences on a smaller scale and individual input, thankfully.
Anyway, that is more than enough exposition. What I learnt from this whole ordeal.
- Huge groups are really difficult to manage particularly without workplace infrastructure and universal motivators (like say money in a job), so establish what you can as soon as you are able. Begin with responsibilities/roles, how decisions are made and how you communicate during the project. As expressed in an earlier blog post, when miscommunication occurs it can pretty much be the basis of most of the trouble you will run into with group work.
- Documentation is a life saver, particularly in long meetings where you have made game changing decisions or assigned tasks. When everyone is arguing or getting defensive in order to save face when you whip out timestamped minutes everyone gets on the same page quickly.
- Speaking of being on the same page figure out who has aligning goals. Ideally everyone, but there are events where comprises can be made a lot of arguments can be settled by sticking to stick to the criteria. Make decisions based on those motivators .
- Aim to be as reliable, uniform and scheduled as possible. Be as reasonably upfront with difficulties/considerations as possible — for example, I personally suffer from anxiety. While it might not play up during the tasks, it might — so it is simply better to get your team members to be aware of the situation and plan to work around it if possible. In terms of being uniform and scheduled, not too dissimilar to the previous point of being on the same page — try to use the same software, organise and use the same naming conventions. Plan meetings ahead of time, and try to meet up at the same time regularly. Hell — work, communicate, update and confirm things in a predictable manner if you can. Neutralise as much unnecessary guesswork as possible.
- Scale. This is the thing that students often struggle with because we all want to dream and incorporate ideas we genuinely care about rather than chasing marks. Be considerate of your skill set and that of others. While planning, be reasonable and be practical. When working do it one step at a time, chip away at it. Delegate! Doing your best to work on the necessary components first before you add all the superfluous stuff will save you from a world of heart and headaches in the submission week. Particularly when you are struggling to piece it all together and your teammates are not online and are wondering why you spent a week tinkering with an effect or working through a tutorial that might make one second of your film look super slick when your sequence is bare bones.
Too real. We will see soon if I can stick to my own advice soon enough.
