Interdisciplinary Work

There were only two different disciplines I got to work with during studio 2 if you don’t include programmers. For our third project we got to work with Audio students and again in project 4 I worked with two audio students but also a Graphic Design student. Each and every occasion that I was able to have interdisciplinary collaboration throughout studio 2 the outcomes from the collaborators was exemplary in this blog I will break down why this was so successful and look at ways it could be even better moving forward.

Up first will be audio, specifically our MusicVideoGame project (project 3). The brief tasked us with making a interactive music video as clients of an audio student. This was fantastic as it was a complete paradigm shift of the usual collaboration with audio process of game students pitching to audio students and trying to get as many as they could on board. The game we ended up making for our student was “Latex Basic” which took three weeks to produce. This project in my opinion was a complete success but a lot of that was because of how our collaboration worked. For example, our initial meeting with our client gave us in depth insight into what he was looking for us to make, he gave us detailed descriptions as well as visual and auditory examples. This gave us an incredibly clear vision from early in the project giving us something to diligently work towards over the three weeks.

As we were clients to our audio student communication and deadlines were incredibly important, we held weekly progress meetings in person with our student to show the work we had completed. Thankfully in the first week we had a working prototype and our student wasn’t afraid to say what he did and didn’t like about it which was amazing. Previously I have worked with collaborators who were too shy or didn’t want to hurt anyones feelings by bringing our changes but in fact it's incredibly beneficial for the project to do so. For example in our prototype we had purple and red neon signs that the player could light up, he loved that it worked but hated the colour red and wanted us to swap it out for some more subtle blues. In the end our student was incredibly happy with our work and we were happy to have worked with him.

Our fourth and final project of studio 2 was Heartland, yet again we were able to collaborate with Audio students and had a positive experience. This time it was more along the lines of classic game/audio relations were we got in contact with the studio 2 lecturer and got our pitch passed onto some students. Unfortunately no studio 2 students were interested but instead we had 2 studio 1 students work with us over the four week project. We had an in person meeting which again was incredibly valuable where we explained the game and the tone we were aiming for and also gave some example songs (the theme song from the last of us). We set strict deadlines which were met each and every time, instead of giving us the audio in one big dump we got the students to trickle any work they completed to us ASAP which gave us the time to implement every file they sent us. After the original meeting our project manager handled the communication with the audio students but any feedback or changes requested were met with positivity and fast changes. The students got us into the classroom to see how the track was going at multiple stages which was awesome to hear the work they were doing and make sure it was going in the right direction but also to see the dedication and detail of work they were putting into the project. Every single asset they sent us from a country ambience loop to the final background track were used in the game and were absolutely vital to the overall feeling for the game, using specific techniques like trickling in assets was pivotal in getting the feeling into Heartland early.

The final collaboration I got to do on Heartland was with a Graphic Design student. Not only did we get a beautiful looking title for the game which we saw from early prototype sketches to the final product we also got an amazing poster in a style we chose. Firstly with the title, we went in with specific ideas which we wanted for the title and managed to get exactly what we wanted. Each and every step of the way we were given clear decisions for what we wanted and saw progress every single week. The title got into the game before the final playtest which really added to the atmosphere and professional look of the game. Every deadline was met and even some exceeded expectation getting quality work early. The poster we asked for in a specific style like Olly Moss vector art style was met with understanding and excitement from our collaborator. Again we saw visually the progress on this poster week to week which was actually really beneficial for the team and me personally keeping motivation seeing such an amazing illustration of what we were making in such a professional way really made me want to make this game the best it could be.

Although I worked with two totally different styles of collaborators throughout the course of Studio 2, I was lucky enough to only have extremely positive interactions and outcomes. This was due to strong communication and clarity of idea in the get go as well as continuous communication throughout. I am greatly looking forward to collaborating in the future especially in Final Project where I have already met some great workers from other disciplines.