Let me start this out with a bit of a disclaimer: I am just a student and all of my advice is based on my experiences I acquired from my time as a GAM2XX producer. Every team's experience is going to be different due to a variety of factors (e.g. team composition).
In my previous posts I have discussed keeping the team happy and nurturing it's culture. That is a very large part of keeping the project itself alive (so if you haven't read them, I strongly suggest you do); however, I will just be talking about what steps you can take to keep the project alive outside of the team maintenance aspect.
Heads in the Clouds; Feet on the Ground
All projects are born from a dream but most projects end up being a small fraction of that dream. Everyone needs to understand this foundational concept before going through with the next step.
The first step to keeping the project alive is letting imagination run loose and expand the dream of the project. Letting new ideas and concepts add to the dream will refresh it and serve as a facet of keeping it present in all the team members minds.
However, understand that a large amount of these additions will not make it past this imaginative brainstorming stage. By letting your team go wild with ideas pertaining to the game, the project's core remains alive and present for them and keeps getting revisited over and over. Once they have opened the imaginative pathways from these exercises, they can then direct this effort towards refining the current form of the project. And who knows, maybe one of the ideas that come from these sessions is the hidden key to making the project absolutely fantastic!
Making Your Team Space Work For You
I could write a whole separate article about this section; however, for the time being, I am just going to go over how your team space can be a perfect area to nurture your project's spirit. Don't be afraid to put inspiration, concepts, and random doodles around your team space. Did your artist make a fan art of your project's character? Put it up! Your designer finished the initial level design? Tack it to the wall! Does you team love a little asset in your game that doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things? Print a ton out and scatter them around!
For my team, our artists transformed our working area to be forest themed with decorative moss, paper moths, and fairy lights strewn about the place. Since our game was set in a very rich rainforest, these little touches around the team space not only kept the project's spirit alive but it created a comfy environment to work in and showed off our character.
These moments of humanity and love for the project need to be displayed to act as reminders of the joy that the people on the team feel for the project. Each time a team member sees them, they will be reminded of the project, thus keeping its soul alive. These are especially useful when the project is encountering a plateau or decline so the more time you put into the space around you, the better you prepare the project and team for those eventualities
Use the Audio Everywhere
Sound is an amazing asset to give life to your game but it can go so far beyond that. You can have your team listen to the compositions that are going to go into the game whenever they are working. It serves as a great common point between all departments to work from and will make sure that the team never loses track of the life of the game.
In my team, my artists were especially thankful for this step. They said it helped them when rendering out environment pieces and working through animations since they could reference back to the audio for inspiration. It was also a great way for audio to get feedback on compositions since they were being listened to over and over again!
Enjoying the Experience
Overall, the single best thing that will keep the project alive is if the team is enjoying working on it. At the end of the day, a project is only as amazing as the team is, so putting the time and effort into meeting the teams needs will be the best thing to keep the project's soul both alive and thriving!
Comentários