This project began with an idea 10 years ago, I wanted to make a game that took the best parts of the games I loved. At that time, I decided to start refining that idea with friends and family with the extra time I had. This process and research into game development ("how could I make this thing myself or with a team?") is ultimately what led me to pursuing a career in game development. A few years ago, the ideas came to life and Total Conflict was born.

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At first, my only goal was to have a refined game concept that I could keep in my pocket until 'the stars aligned and I could make it into a best-selling game!!' Looking back.. I realize how ridiculous this may have been, but starting that process led me down a path that I could never have imagined at the time of the initial idea. I was convinced by friends, family, peers, and myself, to drive forward with it and to reach out to create a team with the somewhat-larger goal of making a prototype of the concept I had created. Before doing this, I gathered some close friends and asked for their help in critiquing, organizing, and getting the concept in a ready-to-develop state. Once this was completed (roughly 2-3 months), I spent another month or so creating, researching, and modeling a team structure off of common industry practices for what is required to deliver a game prototype of this type. I also took time to setup the basics of company-name acquisition under the name "Firefight Games."

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Then, I sprang on the opportunity to recruit my fellow university peers, pitching the idea along with the prospect of increasing the experience of everyone involved with the chance to work on a team to create something special. Here's what I didn't expect - nearly 40 people to jump on the project, with roughly 28 offering their consistent help. I worked quickly, essentially conducting interviews to find the best possible positions for each individual, assigning discipline leads based off of their ability to communicate and drive team spirit, and creating learning plans for those who would need some 'on-boarding' before working on the main project. All team members, according to their role, received a customized plan to help develop their skills.

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This rapid growth and early setup included a plan I created for remote-team development, communication structure, and online collaboration tools. Each team member was able to track their progress and had an easy ability to reach out for help. Though, I was faced with early roadblocks in the project's development. One of the first blows was that only about 18 out of the 28 people were actually able to put time into the project. After many attempts at communication changes and adjustments of expectations and goals; I decided to do the hard thing and cut those members from the project. This ultimately allowed the team leads to focus more on the active contributors and move more efficiently towards our goals. Another critical moment was when the individual that was appointed to the Assistant Director role attempted to steer the team in a completely new direction that the majority of the team didn't originally sign up for. So, I had a multitude of meetings with this team leader to try to find compromises and brought other leads forward to express their opinions. This ultimately resulted in this individual making an amicable decision to step down from their position to pursue other goals. Throughout this brief time of leadership conflict, there was never a moment of unprofessionalism, and I was proud of myself and our team for handling the situation well!

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My consistent contributions came in the form of near non-stop communication between team leads and myself, and occasionally direct help with individuals on other disciplines when they needed help or redirection on tasks. I organized and took part in weekly team meetings for each discipline, often taking the role of goal coordination and note taking, making sure to follow up on team members and leads with actionable items. Task tracking and timeline management became a good chunk of my effort as well. As the team progressed, change and decision making became more rapid, and I needed to keep up with it. I create a multitude of tools, including Excel sheets and Monday.com task tracking to help with this, alongside my fellow leads. I was always facilitating coordination between all disciplines, including namely the art and programming teams. Finally, I performed many other smaller roles including; level design, sound design, and game design. 

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Over the course of about a year (from ideation to production), this prototype project taught me a swath of lessons about larger-team leadership, management, and organization. For the first time during this project, I felt I could actually drive towards my career-dream role of being a solid Game Producer, while doing what I love and making mistakes (and learning from them) along the way.