KAELAN sIMPSON

What Went Right:

Tools

I was able to create a wide range of tools for our team.  Most of the tools I created were heavily used and saved us a significant of development time.  I hadn’t used Unreal before working on Alberio so it was very beneficial to create a toolset which helped me develop a deeper understanding of the engine.

Pipelines

Our team pipelines were well constructed and efficient.  I was able to run playtests on our team works flows and make meaningful changes to improve them.  Working on these pipelines greatly increased my understanding of other disciplines which in turn made me a better designer.

 

What Went Wrong:

Team communication

The one thing our team struggled heavily with was communication, this was largely due to being a fully remote team during Covid-19.  Our team functioned more like a group of individuals then at team.  We were able to get things done but never reached our full potential due to frequent miscommunication and a lack of team unity.

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What I Gained:

How to approach tools and pipelines

An ability to develop tool and pipelines was by biggest take away from working on Alberio.  I made many mistakes on my tools which I then learned from.  I also developed an ability to always look for ways to improve workflows.  My technical knowledge in Unreal also greatly improved as I was constantly immersing myself in different content pipelines.

The importance of communication and shared vision

Working on Alberio also gave me a new appreciation for the important of team communication.  Our team was full of great individuals but we were handicapped by frequent miscommunications.  The lack of communication lead to a severe lack of shared vision.  A shared team vision is something I will never take for granted again.  When different departments have very different ideas of what the game is team morale and productivity are severely diminished.