My Role:

Pre-Production Team Lead

A Flame Forward was a highly collaborative project and had many team members involved in its successful creation. I was one of four team leads, and this was for the Pre-Production team. There were many responsibilities for my team, especially since there were only two weeks for all teams to complete everything based on the Vesalius-Trust-A-Thon challenge.

The team worked quickly in a matter of about seven days. Every day, I organized one-hour meetings for the team to meet and brainstorm extensively. Our primary goal was to lay out the foundation for the entire game. We knew it was going to be a 2D video game about mental health and dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but that was all we had to work off of.

So many members came forward with wonderful ideas, and we ended up deciding all characters were going to be flame-like beings. I broke down our tasks and delegated members to write dialogue as I provided edits, discussed game mechanics while I organized and maintained a list, and assigned mood board and preliminary sketching tasks of our vision to forward to the art team.

We also created the different levels, or the five rooms in which the player goes through. We decided to theme each room. The first room was themed for social isolation, in which the player helps their friend collect tools to communicate with others. The next room was about anxiety, and the player had to help a friend complete a maze despite their fear. The third room involved helping someone collect memorabilia about a deceased loved one, and the fourth room involved motivating others to complete chores while being chased by a trash monster. The final room was based on self-reflection in which the player realizes it’s great to help others, but they should also make time for themself as well.

During this small timeframe, if we could not come to an agreement, I quickly had to make finalized, last-minute decisions based upon my teammates’ feelings and considerations. I communicated with the other team leads to make sure the project was on track or if my team had to take out any details or rework any ideas for the remainder of the challenge.