Django Unplugged

Development Info

Role: Lead Designer, Producer

Duration: Aug 2022 - Present (expected launch May 2023)

Tools used: Unreal, Perforce, Excel

Team size: 7

Game Info

Genre: Third person brawler/shooter

Platform: Itch.io

Project Status: Released

Links

Game Description

Django Unplugged is 3rd person beat 'em up/shooter that follows a slave uprising against their masters. The player uses their bare hands and weapons stolen from slave masters to take back their freedom by any means necessary.

What I did

Lead the team in overall direction and goals
Facilitate meetings and communication to ensure efficiency and productivity
Create and maintain a production timeline
Create and maintain a design document
Lead the design and balancing of all gameplay/combat systems
Delegate certain system to junior designers and oversee progress/give feedback
Design, greybox, and iterate on levels, working alongside an environmental artist to bring them to life

What I learned

The potential pitfalls of preproduction stagnation and being excessively democratic during the preproduction phase
How to address conflict within the team as producer/team lead
How to judge which decisions can be made democratically vs should be made executively for the sake of the overall project
Gained experience working with junior designers
How to plan, create and maintain a production timeline
How to identify which features are part of the core experience vs stretch goals