The second semester of the Game Studio Capstone entails the selected teams absorbing the members of cut teams; creating much larger development teams (usually 10 - 15 members). These development teams then work to produce either full games or well-polished prototypes. Development on these games is completed at the end of the semester. Following the completion of these games the college invites industry professionals, recruiters, friends, and family to join the students in displaying their final games at the Senior Show.
What Is It?
As a student of the Champlain Game Studio my final year in the program involves a two semester long Capstone project. The first semester entails working with a small team (usually 4 - 6 members) to rapidly prototype game mechanics; with the intention of settling on one to move forward with sometime in early-October. Each team’s timeline is different. Following this prototype period the team will then rapidly develop a vertical slice to present during a MidMortem period. Of the games presented at MidMortem around half will be selected to enter full development on larger teams in the next semester.
My Role
I held a production and design role on a team of 5 known as clock_angry. I held my design role with one other designer and together we work to collaborate through the prototyping process. Due to small team sizes both myself and my fellow designer wore many hats. Experiences during this rapid prototyping process involved level design, technical implementation, collaborative systems design, paper prototyping, and narrative design. Over this 3 month period almost no aspect of design work was left untouched by either designer.
