USC Student Game Dev Team Develops a Nintendo DS Game, Part 2

A student game dev team from USC talks about the challenges of developing a game for the Nintendo DS…

[wp_youtube]5yAdZ5QlHHk[/wp_youtube]

Jeff: …in spite the lack of tools.

Interviewer: Can you guys talk about any of the people challenges or motivation challenges that you guys ran into. This is very important.

Keith: Yes, people are very important.

Interviewer: That’s the number one thing, right?

Keith: As team lead I went through a lot of that. The number one thing is communication. It’s very hard to maintain communication, but we were blessed with a bunch of people that we recruited that were really passionate about the game.

Interviewer: Sure.

Keith: And so, they put in way more time than we asked them just to make the game great.

Interviewer: Did you recruit them through classes or did you put out flyers?

Keith: We recruited them before the class even started.

Jeff: They were the co-creators, but people like me, they asked me to come on. And so, they just head hunted for a good team well in advance.

Interviewer: Did they show you a prototype when they asked you?

Jeff: Yes, they did. I played a prototype before I joined the team. It was an impressive prototype, and it got my interest.

Interviewer: So, prototype is important to get more people.

Jeremy: We recruited people from all diverse disciplines, and actually we were lucky enough that several of our colleagues that are team members, for example, were classmates initially when we made this.

For example, Hersh, our producer was actually Keith’s roommate and got him interested. He thought the idea was great as well, and I guess we’re just really blessed to have gotten together this group of people that really are passionate about this idea who wanted to see it to its completion.

Keith: I will say that if people or students want to come up with a team, definitely don’t wait until you get into a class or something like that. Go out, talk to your friends and the number one thing that we really learned at USC is that you show, you don’t tell.

I would just come into my class with my laptop and I’d pull up the demo and say, hey you guys, check this out. So, they’d play and say, it’s really cool. So, do you want to work on this like for the next year? And they were like, yeah sure, this would be awesome to work on. This is really fun.

So that way we were able to get a really passionate team about it, and then we never really had any morale issues or anything like that. It was just like we were going through the fall semester. We’re going to IGF. We’re going to win the IGF, and we were joking around and things like that.

Then, all of a sudden when we finally made it, we’re like finalists on IGF. Holy cow, everything we’ve been talking about actually came true. And just because we had the drive, we had the passion, we were willing to work for it, we didn’t know if we were going to get in. There was a record number of entries this year, and we were like, we’re probably not going to make it, but, hey, we entered and we’re proud of that. Now it’s like, wow, we’re here now and it can only get better from here.

Interviewer: Any other suggestions then for other students running their own team in terms of making sure that the team is cohesive in getting things done, aside from communication?

Keith: So, I guess one thing is as a team leader, if you are the team leader, you are going to have to make sure that you know exactly where all the team members stand which means you need to know motivates them. Why are they doing this? What are their priorities in this? What do they want to get out of this?

As team leader, it’s not about getting the game that you want out. It’s about getting what everybody else wants out of this, and so you have to be willing to just… If somebody wants to work on… If somebody wants to work on AI. Hey, let them work on AI because if they’re are passionate about it they will work twice as hard, so you get better AI and you get somebody who is learning a lot.

So, for team leaders who are trying to get teams together, communication is a big thing but also knowing your team, making sure that you iron out any conflicts, possible conflicts, you sit down and talk to them down and lock them in a room and argue at each other. It happens all the time. We ran into things where we were like, we’d be all in a room together and we’d be arguing over something. I do that with the producer a lot, but you iron all these things out.

Jeremy: I think another thing I would want to add is definitely trust. We’re all friends here. We know we can count on each other, and we know we can rely on each other. I think a big thing about forming a team is work with people that you know, work with people that you can trust, work with people that you are good friends for life. We are all good friends in real life. Even if we weren’t on a team, we would probably be hanging out with each other anyway, so you’ve got to make sure that there is a… [I see you smirking.]

Interviewer: I’ve just seen the opposite experience, actually. I should say it’s actually dangerous to hire friends.

Jeff: With us, we’ve been lucky that a lot of us are friends, and we haven’t had any problems. I would say, keep your friendship out of the work. Don’t let personal issues get iintertwined with the work. I think we’ve done really well keeping away from that. And as a result, we all have a good relationship, a good professional and personal relationship, but I would say be careful of that.

Keith: If you are going to work with friends, you definitely need to draw a line between the work place and your friendship. You don’t want to lose it.

Interviewer: Have you had to shift someone then from one category or what they are doing into another because they weren’t necessarily well suited for it?

Keith: It’s typically in that type of scenario I’m not just going to say, hey, you’re not good at this. I’m going to put you on something else. Typically, I’ll ask. What do you want to do? Do you want to continue on this? Do you have any other skill sets that you want to use? If they’re like, I really like what I’m doing. Then, I can be like, Hey, you’re not putting out as good as you should be. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe, let’s say he’s a programmer or something, maybe one of the senior programmers can help you out or things like that.

It can go in a couple of ways. If he responds, like OK that’s cool. Now, you have a mentorship going there and that person who’s learning. If it’s, no, no, no, I want to do it on my own. Well, let me know if there is anything else I can do and then you just have to prioritize.

Maybe, you’ll put them on tasks that are not mission critical. You put them on things that would be great if they went into the game, but you don’t put all your responsibility on someone so that way they can explore and learn but they’re not pressured to deliver as much as maybe one of the senior programmers or something like that.

Jeff: I’d say my biggest advice if you are a student or someone just wanting to make a game, just make it. You’re going to learn the most even if you don’t feel like you know everything going into it. You are going to learn the most by just doing it.

Interviewer: Any last words then for other student game developers who want to make their own game?

Jeremy: I think I’d say that if you have an idea and it’s something you are truly passionate about, pursue it. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do it. Take the idea. Run with it. If you have a dream, go for it.

Jeff: I just echo what I was just said. If you want to make a game, the best way to do it is just do it.

Keith: I would say the best advice I can give is that you shouldn’t give up. No matter how bleak things may look, no matter how the deadlines are creeping up on you, do not give up. Push through it, and if you push through it, you know, like at the end of the tunnel you are going to look back and you’ll be like, hey, that was ridiculously hard. We may not even have gotten everything we wanted in, but we may have lost a couple of team members for one reason or another, stuff like that.

For example, there are problems. They have class. You are students, so one thing you have to manage is other people have classes, and so you want to shift things around that somebody has a mid-term, maybe, somebody else can fill into their spot. But, don’t give up. Definitely do not give up. If it looks like you only have three people working with you on an 11 man team, which has happened a couple of times, you have those three people work and they will work because they are passionate about it. Just do not give up ever.

Interviewer: The game has changed since its initial conception, right?

Keith: Yes.

Interviewer: So, be flexible, right?

Keith: Oh yes, be flexible. Be open to new ideas. And one thing I will say that I have personally learned, if you are the leader of a team, you must listen to everyone around you no matter who they are because everyone has ideas. Everyone has ideas. Somebody may kick out a thousand really crappy ideas, but if they come out with one good one, that could be the one thing that makes or breaks your game. Always listen to people. Always listen to what everybody says.

Jeremy: On that note, don’t be afraid to look every single place, every nook and cranny, for inspiration because you never know when it’s going to strike you. You could be – I don’t know – taking a bus home or something, sitting looking around, and you’ll be like: Bam, an idea strikes you. Don’t ever single anything out. Don’t ever belittle anything because the inspiration may be there.

Interviewer: Sounds good. Thank you very much.