ROLE: ART PRODUCER TEAM SIZE: 57 DEVELOPMENT TIME: 3 MONTHS RELEASED: MAY 27, 2020 ENGINE: UNREAL PLATFORM: PC

HaberDashers is a console-style arcade kart racer for the PC in which players control miniature humanoid inhabitants of an everyday home, racing past over-sized household items and through rooms as they compete against human and AI opponents with both driving skills and item pick-ups.

During this project, I filled the role of Art Producer. As the Art Producer, I managed communication among artists, supported Art Lead responsibilities, lead daily stand-up meetings, managed production pipelines, and documented and evaluated team performance through sprint retrospectives. I met unique challenges due to COVID-19 including the transfer of physical scrum boards to digital tools and iteration of pipelines to suit a virtual workspace. Among these responsibilities, I also managed communication with other team leads and producers as well as stakeholders.

My duties included leading daily stand-up meetings, resolving interpersonal conflicts, and communicating project status and blockers to stakeholders.

Download HaberDashers

GAME TRAILER

RESPONSIBILITIES

ROLE: ART PRODUCER

Developed, implemented, managed, and iterated art production pipelines
Collaborated with level design and programming teams regarding needs and process
Facilitated daily stand-up meetings and discussion with artists
Coached skills and abilities of the Art Lead
Resolved interpersonal conflicts among the team
Transferred all physical production materials to a digital workspace
Tracked, documented, and improved team performance for each sprint

EXPERIENCE

HaberDashers is the first project where I filled the role of a producer. Previously, I had minimal producer experience but plenty of art experience. Due to my familiarity with asset creation and my established relationship with the art developers, I was best suited to the role of Art Producer.

Our first roadblock was finding a suitable candidate for the position of Art Lead. I assisted stakeholders with identifying the best candidate for the role and, once assigned, helped coach the new art lead in leadership, art direction, and communication.

The second challenge was the logistics of switching to a virtual workspace partway into production due to COVID-19 restrictions. The two-week sprint for 1st Playable/Vertical Slice was split by spring break. During the first week of this sprint, I transferred the art team’s physical sprint boards into a digital workspace as the other producers did the same for their teams. While developers continued to progress toward sprint goals, the producers became familiar with the new digital tools so we could help onboard the rest of the team. Thanks to this foresight, we set up the team for success for the remainder of production.

Even though switching to a virtual workspace came with its own challenges, our organization and preparation not only allowed the team to achieve our goals but to exceed expectations as well. HaberDashers is the first game from SMU Guildhall’s Team Game Development II course to be published.

POST MORTEM

WHAT WORKED

The contingency plan for a virtual workspace was prepared and executed well

Regular feedback from developers allowed processes to be tailored to the needs of the team
Assigning “department leads” using RACI helped manage the responsibilities of the art lead
Artists assigned to sub-teams according to strengths and interests balanced the workload
Daily leads stand up meeting kept all teams on the same page