[Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy student Patrick Dietz reflects on the development of Dead West, an ambitious student project that saw more than its fair share of ups and down during development.]
Some weeks before I started at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA), the game development Master's program at the University of Central Florida, I began searching for a concept that that could be pitched successfully for our thesis project. The game had to be a vehicle for highlighting the diverse skillsets of our artists, programmers, producers and designers. It had to be built in seven months by a small, motivated team with concurrent classwork and zero budget. But most of all, it had to strike that mercurial balance of great gameplay, great technology and great art.
Through a process that was a cross between industry pitch and reality game show, that idea became Dead West. And thanks to the dedication and talent of our team, we were able to meet those goals, if not the scope of the game, in just about every way. However, neither the product nor the process was without flaws.
What Dead West became is a fun, frantic difficult combination of survival shooter, action-RPG, and tower defense. Set amid the painted deserts of the great American southwest circa 1880, Dead West follows the harrowing journey of Jack Dixon, retired lawman and famed sideshow gunslinger, as he leads a wagon train of fellow carnival workers on a mission to end a horrible curse.
Dixon and his gang worked in a traveling carnival until our nefarious antagonist, Billy No Mates, unleashed a curse that transformed most of the workers into grotesque, mindless husks that live only to ravenously hunt the survivors. As Jack, players balance ammo, defenses, inventory and skills to fend off relentless waves of carnies, firebreathers and elephant men. Additionally, the covered wagons that Jack is escorting function as towers, each gaining experience and power along one of three paths chosen by the player.
Thematically, we drew heavy inspiration from classic 70's Clint Eastwood westerns such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and The Outlaw Josey Wales, the unique and historic flavors of carnival culture, and from Valve's outstanding Left 4 Dead series. We made it a priority after pre-production to get the entire team familiar with the films, games and historical period that inspired Dead West. This helped foster a shared vision for the game that proved essential to nailing the setting and tone.
What Went Right
1. Vision, Dedication and Talent
This shared vision for the product may sound like a creative detail to outsiders, but it's ultimately what made this project possible. No one on this team had built something on this scale before, and very few had worked in any sort of professional environment. In my opinion, it was our collective vision for what this game could achieve that pushed us all to make a compelling, hardcore gaming experience. I wish I could call out each of our team members for their herculean efforts and intelligent work. Suffice to say, they are the people who worked excessive hours for no pay, made hard decisions with every system and asset, found creative solutions to unexpected problems, overcame personal differences, and took on the most thankless tasks all in the greater interest of executing our shared vision. They made Dead West look, feel, and play like the game we set out to make, and that's pretty phenomenal!
From our early concept work, it was clear that our team believed in this idea and had both the motivation and the talent to make it happen. Some of our environmental paintings are worthy of hanging, our earliest character concepts required very little iteration to what we eventually created, and the pulp-comic style story video was hand drawn by one person in just two weeks. All of our artists understood these things fundamentally and pretty much hit the tone and setting from the earliest iterations.
The same ethos proved true across all of our teams. Our programmers produced a dynamic difficulty AI system for our spawning, similar to the AI Director in Left 4 Dead, and tools that allowed the designers to balance difficulty to the players actual performance, in real time, and yet the makeup of each enemy spawn was unique with every playthrough. They also developed and iPad app that allowed for asymmetric gameplay, real-time metric gathering tools, and a host of other impressive features. Each individual team member displayed that dedication to the product and to the team, without which we would have lost our momentum at any number of places: some harsh critiques, interpersonal conflict, and difficult cuts to name a few.
2. Smart Compromise and Strong Chemistry
It's hard to define what it is that makes great team chemistry; it's a shifting group of personalities and motivations that don't always align, even when we share the same vision for a great product. High on the list of ingredients here is the ability to compromise when it counts.
We all want to be uncompromising in our ideals, creativity and quality. Yet when schedules are tight, budgets are non-existent and the path ahead is murky, compromise is how things get done. It wasn't done without a lot of thought; weighing the pros and cons and some creative brainstorming. It also forced us to distill what was really important to the end product and the player experience, and to find creative ways to meet those goals.
All of this took a great deal of energy and the occasional bruised ego. Tensions can run high with a full workload, little sleep and countless technical and creative challenges to overcome. Our weekly updates often spawned harsh critiques and differing opinions. In those cases where compromise was next to impossible, the team generally had the maturity and grace to accept the decisions from the leads and move on with our tasks. Sometimes we fought, usually with a measure of civility. But I'm proud to say that time and time again, individuals on this team set aside differences, creative or otherwise, to find smart solutions. It wasn't always easy and we weren't always successful, but I can't overstate how important this trait is in a team.
