About Workbench
Using Lumberyard, Amazon’s new game engine, team Workbench is designing and developing a highly-polished vertical slice of a game, which will be using Twitch to allow viewers to directly affect the game. The team aims to build a game in which the Streamer and the Audience members can build a relationship by simultaneously experiencing and interacting with the game, and each other. Another pillar for this project is the formation and creation of formal technical documentation of the development process and lifecycle of creating a game with Lumberyard, with a focus on a Unity developer’s perspective on the experience.
weekly Blog
Week 16
This was a unique and satisfying semester for many reasons for our team. Overall, we collectively and individually made a lot of progress. Having the opportunity to work on a AAA game engine is not a chance other ETC projects get a chance to do, and having that exposure at a graduate level will undoubtedly help us “stand out from the crowd”.
Week 15
As the semester finally draws to a close, our team was left with only a few – but major – tasks to deal with. The ETC Open House was this week, and our Final Presentation to the ETC students and faculty the next.
Week 14
A majority of our week was focussed on preparing for Lumberjam, which our team would be hosting over the weekend. At the beginning of the week, however, we had our Soft Opening, where we briefly got to discuss our game demo with the ETC faculty, while getting guidance towards improving the build for the end of the semester.
Week 13
This week, we focused mainly on prioritizing tasks which would help us reach a minimum viable product for Soft Opening next week. To do this, the team create a large list of tweaks, additions, and/or fixes which would take aid us in creating a better game demo.
Week 12
This week, our team started to think deeper about design concepts.
One of the critical things we noticed during Playtest Day was that our demo would need to have a higher active engagement with the player. With limited time remaining in the semester, we had to think of creative ideas that would be in-scope, easy wins, and “game-changing” for our demo.
Week 11
This week, our team focused on digesting and analyzing feedback from Halves, and then further using it to formulate a plan for the remainder of the semester. At the same time, we also prepped for (and conducted) Playtest Day, a day when we get naive playtesters to come try out what we have built so far.
Week 10
This week saw our team take a deep dive into active development. Now that we have our basic design concept approved by our client, we can start working towards a build that should be ready by the time Halves Presentations roll around at the ETC.
Week 9
Our team, along with other project teams at the ETC, had to contend with a gap of Spring Break, immediately followed by the Game Developer’s Conference, a premiere conference in the gaming community which a lot of ETC students attend.
Week 8
This week saw our team take a deep dive into active development. Now that we have our basic design concept approved by our client, we can start working towards a build that should be ready by the time Halves Presentations roll around at the ETC.
Week 7
This week saw our team take a deep dive into active development. Now that we have our basic design concept approved by our client, we can start working towards a build that should be ready by the time Halves Presentations roll around at the ETC.
Week 6
Our primary focus for week 6 was working towards pitching a full concept for a vertical slice to our client, to better understand the direction we will be heading in for the rest of the semester.
Week 5
This week, one of our primary goals as a team was to present during Quarters at the ETC. Quarters presentations are a way for a team to get early input from the ETC faculty, in a bid to help shape and guide the project …
Week 4
This week, Amazon created a dedicated forum for us, we had a client meeting to get buy-in on key plans for the semester, created three character concepts for the Streamer’s character, had a call with an expert on…
Week 3
Our third week of the semester saw us pitch ideas to our client, receive support from Amazon’s tech support on some of our queries. The team had been working on several ideas to pitch to our client….
Week 2
One of our main areas of focus this week was the creation of Gold Spikes. As a development team, we believe it is really important to create Gold Spikes early in the semester. In fact, this was an idea that was…
Week 1
Welcome to Project Workbench’s blog. In this blog, we will be posting weekly updates about what our team is currently working on in a bid to give you, the reader, a better understanding and…