A guide to Alien: Nemesis's development & release

Shadow Wizard Games is a team made of 23 university students who worked together to create Alien: Nemesis for the Project III subject. See how we organized this project below!

Producer

The producer has the job of managing the team, supervising the development of the game, risk management, keeping calendar timings, and monitoring the Scrum process. They are in charge of organizing team events and being on top of any other personal issues.

Leads

Leads are responsible for the quality of everything produced by the team. They’re in charge of distributing and reviewing work, organizing the department, and communicating with the other groups and the producer about the team's progress and decisions.

Departments

The team was distributed in 3 departments: Design with 5 members, Art with 7 members, and Code with 11 members. Each department worked on their tasks along with the others in Scrum groups to get the game done.

Sprints

We worked on 11 sprints ranging from 1 to 2 weeks depending on the time until the next milestone. During a sprint, each Scrum group had 3 weekly meetings to check on how everything was going and what needed to be done. On Tuesdays after finishing a milestone, leads and producers would have a meeting to determine the tasks and scrum teams for the next milestone. Production meetings would also be held on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to check on how each department is doing plus a meeting on Mondays before the end of a milestone.


Methodology

For this project, Shadow Wizard Games used Scrum methodology. Each sprint, the tasks that needed to be done were separated by scrum teams and one of the members of each scrum team would be assigned to be scrum master so that everyone on the team held that position at some point.

Methodology Chart

Production Tools

Our Tech Stacks

Production Tech Stack

Google Drive

Google Drive

Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google.

Google Docs

Google Docs

Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google.

Google Slides

Google Slides

Google Slides is a presentation program included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google.

Google Sheets

HackNPlan

HacknPlan is a production tool for game development studios, which provides a set of features for planning, documenting, scheduling, tracking and evaluating the progress of a game project.

Google Sheets

Discord

Discord is a free communications app that lets you share voice, video, and text chat with friends, game communities, and developers.

Programming Tech Stack

Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2022

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs, as well as websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps.

VSCode

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code, also known as VS Code, is a source-code editor made by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS.

VSCode

Open GL

OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics.

VSCode

Audiokinetic Wwise

Wwise features a complete suite of design and development tools, making it easy to prototype and bring to life any creative vision for audio, no matter the scale of the project.

Git

Git

Git is software for tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development.

GitHub

GitHub

GitHub, Inc. is a provider of Internet hosting for software development and version control using Git.

Design Tech Stack

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe.

Machinations

Machinations

Machinations is a visual language for diagramming game economies, and a tool for drawing, and above all, simulating them without writing code.

Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design program developed and marketed by Adobe.

Unity

Unity

Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies.

Artist Tech Stack

Maya

Maya

Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya, is a 3D computer graphics application.

Figma

Figma

Figma is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool.

Substance Painter

Adobe Substance 3D Painter

Adobe Substance 3D Painter is a 3D painting software that allows texturing and rendering of 3D meshes.

Audacity

Audacity

Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software.