Team Size: 20
Role: Product Owner, Lead Designer (Combat Design Spec)
Software: Unreal Engine 4
Genre: Third-Person Roguelike
Dev Time: 3 Months (June '21 - August '21)
ModBots is a third-person arena roguelike in which players fight for their lives in a futuristic gladiatorial arena. Use the spare parts of the enemy robots you kill as weapons. Fight on your own or online with friends to see how long you can survive in the hexagon!
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the game developers in my year at college weren't able to secure internships or jobs during our Junior year, so we formed Earthbreak Studio and gave any who were interested in working over the summer a position. With the primary intention of making something to release on Steam, we spent the summer of 2021 focusing on developing with that goal in mind instead of developing solely for a course project.
I was the product owner and lead designer for ModBots. This entailed leading group discussions about the game's direction, coordinating what the project schedule looked like, and working closely with each discipline to make sure deadlines were being met and scope issues were addressed as soon as possible. I was also the lead combat and systems designer, so I worked especially closely with the engineering team on weapon drop rates, weapon types, excel integration, and enemy behaviors.
All upgrades were held in an excel sheet. The engineering team then could select the upgrades they wanted to develop, select them, and program them. Once implemented I would then do a balance pass of the upgrade. If changes or alterations were made to the upgrade, the sheet would be updated.
Being the lead of such a large team, documentation was extremely important so all team members were up to date on any design changes. I wrote the design document over the course of the project to help members of every discipline understand each aspect of the design so integration into the build required very few questions needed.
All team members had commenting privileges so everyone's voice could be heard and questions could be asked much easier.