Group Project Simulator is a comedic visual novel with five different minigames that simulate the experience of working with others in a project.
Created in the GameMaker 2 engine, the game is targeted at whoever has ever been in a group project. It has a focus on player choice and several different endings.
You can find Group Project Simulator for free on Steam!
Creative Director. I came up with the concept, created a demo, pitched it, and then worked directly with a team of 7 others to see my vision carried through.
What Group Project Simulator is:
My position:
Short List
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Created concept
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Programmed a demo
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Pitched the game for UT Dallas's Game Lab program
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Worked directed with a team of 7 other talented students
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Wrote a game design document for the project
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Served as the producer of the project in terms of writing the schedule and setting deadlines
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Designed the main game flow
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Created various diagrams to help communicate with my team
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Approved all aesthetics, mechanics, design, sound, and narrative decisions
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Playtested for bugs and user experience
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Went through QA surveys as well as observed playtesters to make decisions as to how to best tailor the game
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Ran meetings and facilitated communication with the team
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Programmed several key features in GML
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Finished the game and published it to Steam
Overview and Scope
Group Project Simulator is a humorous visual novel with minigames. The player is dropped into a group projects where they have to choose who and what to work on over the week to hopefully get a good grade. The project is broken into two parts, the presentation and the paper, and working with certain characters increases a certain part of that grade. Each character has a different minigame to represent working with them. For example, when the player works with the procrastinator character Ed, it is represented as a dodgeball-like match of him throwing distractions at the player and the player trying to keep them on topic. At the end of the week, the presentation occurs and the grades are averaged into the players final score.
It's a game meant to be played multiple times, where the player can choose to prioritize their grade or to get to know the different group members. Each run lasts approximately 7 to 10 minutes, five different major endings, and several minor variations thereof.
My goal was to design an overhead to keep track of the player choice, a simple visual novel system, and five different minigames. Each character minigame needed at least three levels and to convey the character and situation they represented. In other words, this game had a lot of systems and gameplay to create.
My team had one designated programmer, along with a game designer and narrative designer who also helped with coding, three artists, and a lead sound designer with her own team of sound designers. It was important to keep the team composition in mind when making decisions as to what was necessary to the core game loop, and what needed cut. My team are all wonderfully talented and working with them was truly special. My job was essentially leading the project, working with everyone, and making all of the decisions in regard to the game as a whole.
I have more gameplay videos below, as well as some of the design process if you are interested in finding out more about Group Project Simulator. The game has been published to Steam.
GAMEPLAY
Schedule Slots
Sometimes meeting with a group is difficult. Everyone has different schedules, people are busy, it's like winning the lottery when everything works out.
The more the player attempts to win this, the more persuasive the give up button becomes. A surprise awaits the dedicated player.
Alyssa's Adventure
Alyssa's minigame is a point and click puzzle game where the player has to solve the room. Some rooms have multiple solutions that lead to other destinations. The player can have very different experiences depending on the choices they make and how close they decide to follow Alyssa's instructions.
Tracing Trouble
Skylar's minigame is a hand-eye coordination drawing game where the player must try to get a high score in the time allotted. Skylar's several cats make don't make it easy.
Distraction Dodgeball
Ed's minigame is a battle of focus. Avoid distractions and smack him with academics. Each level gets increases in difficulty so keep the player must keep on their toes.
Anxiety Dream
The player can choose to not work on the project and just go to sleep. It's not a calming experience.
DESIGN
I designed Group Project Simulator to be a game where every bit of it ties into the greater narrative. I really wanted a game where the gameplay creates a stronger story and lets the player understand the characters better. It was very important to me that the entire experience of Group Project Simulator accurately reflects the feeling of a group project. From the structure, to the characters and the minigames- everything had to support the concept for it to work.
Game Flow
Every day the player makes a choice as to what on the project they want to work on. After the player picks a character to help, they'll go through a visual novel segment and then a minigame that will control their grade at the end of the game.
CHARACTER DESIGN
One of the most important things to get right was the actual group. I wanted to start out with stereotypes the player could recognize as someone they've worked with before, if not recognize from some of their own bad habits. Every group member is a challenge to work with and yet lovable in their own way when you get to know them.
YU
The Player Character
-Gotta get that A
-Snarky and put upon
-Loves aliens
-Can literally sleep a week
-Has a connection to the color yellow
SKYLAR
Hoodie Guy
--Sleeps in class
-Energy is missing
-Shy, quiet
-Tired artist
-Gets along with animals -Kitten in pocket
-Awake at midnight -Unsocial
ALYSSA
The Organized
-The players ally
-Very particular
-Shaped like a friend (round shapes)
-Would accessorize 100% -Total nerd
-But like the kind who could rule the world because she actually has herself together
ED
Procrastinator
-Wholesome sports bro
-What sport? All of them
-A Disaster
-Almost too friendly
-Never quite knows what's going on
-Doesn't realize how annoying he can be to work with
-Never says no
As for the art style I wanted things to be fun, colorful, and cartoony. Each character is visually distinct and has their own firm aesthetic. We have a few different art styles present, especially within the minigames, connected to the different characters as well as optimized for that particular gameplay, so cohesion was important.
GAME DESIGN
I started this endeavor with a demo and a game design document and ended it with much more.
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I'd like to go into more depth with Tracing Trouble for example to show you how the process went.
The humble beginnings of Tracing Trouble started with this demo created in GameMaker 1.4. It has the basic logic worked out of the cursor, good blocks, bad blocks, and a basic scoring system.
I knew then from comments on the demo that I wanted a combo style scoring system as well as some more difficultly than just avoiding the bad blocks. The color palette also needed adjusting, and I wanted the timer visible.
I created this UI diagram for the team with consultation with my game designer. The goal was to have three levels that pertain to each of the three project topics. I showed the art team some pixel art inspiration and assigned it to the artist who is really strong at creating pixel art.
The first edition levels were pixel art like this and absolutely beautiful. However, they weren't working well as levels. Playtesters weren't wanting to trace the lines, they wanted to color inside- the inside that lost lost them points. There was also the practical concern that having the programmer create this level in game assets was taking hours we didn't have. So, as pretty as they were we had to go back to the drawing board for levels.
This time I had learned to start with the level design first and then make it pretty rather than starting with the art and working to make it playable. I created this diagram for my game designer to explain what I wanted out of the level design. I wanted our levels to prioritize player choice and risk vs reward behavior. For example, one path might be harder to navigate but it connected to more of the level while one path might be easy points but then you might have to backtrack or go around and it'd cost you more time in the long run.
My game designer was inspired by wire art and I loved the idea. Now that the art was simpler we could focus on the actual gameplay. We played around with different obstacles and collision boxes. This kind of level tested as a better experience than the initial pixel stages.
Overall-
This was an interesting minigame to direct. Because the art and gameplay were so closely linked here, the team had to communicate very closely. Even though I started with the base mechanics already figured out, this game went through a lot of changes through iteration. We'd try out an obstacle and then see if we needed to add more, change it, or take it out. How big should the blocks that make up the picture be? How much leeway do we want the player to have? How many pixels grace is appropriate for precision?
This game was intended to be first and formost about eye-hand coordination and pathing. The fact we narratively set it as a drawing activity created interesting problems for us to fix along the way. Whether that be from people wanting to color in the levels or focus more on trying to complete the picture rather than worry about their score, we had to rethink several times. Adding in a tutorial was invaluable, and by making these line drawing stages it cleared up the goal of the game to several players.
And that's just one minigame of several systems. As you can see below I made several other diagrams over the course of production and bounced even more issues out with the power of iteration. Communication made the project succeed.
