It's been a little over 5 months since I closed production on this project. With graduation literally days away from submission a postmortem was the last thing on my mind; I just wanted to cross the finish line at last. After a long, well-deserved summer with loved ones and eventually finding a job I finally came back to write the postmortem that this project deserves.

What went right with Project "Boricuas"?

1. Although I've been part of a game dev team (see Clock Out!!), for Project "Boricuas" I actually decided to pool my resources together to lead my own team. Using my connections from YoungArts, the PRGDA, and MassDigi I was able to receive funding to hire a programmer, designer, and artist to help me with this project. Even though this was my first time being a manager of sorts, I think I did pretty well staying on top of meetings, tasks, and deadlines while also designing for my game. In just the first four weeks of development, thanks to the hard work and cooperation of my teammates, we were able to create a playable prototype on par with the creative vision I had shared with them.
   
2. Ignacia is a character with a relatable struggle. Like myself and a lot of other Puerto Ricans who grow up outside the island, there's a very good chance we aren't taught much about our culture from our parents (and when we are it's usually the superficial stuff). Very few of us reach a point in our lives where we seek the culture out ourselves. Ignacia has that same fire in her: seek out her family and be immersed in the ways of her people.
3. There was a lot of research that I had done about El Yunque. I wanted to make sure that what was being illustrated by my artist was accurate to the source material. Some of the things I researched included the geography, vegetation, and the wildlife that inhabits the forest.

What went wrong?

1. Combat is completely unnecessary for fulfilling the goal of this project. In the early stages I was obsessed with creating a working hitbox/hurtbox system without fully knowing what this game was going to look like toward the end. It ended up backfiring, and actually makes the player experience really unenjoyable. The player couldn't really take their time to explore the forest and reveal hidden objects with their lantern because suddenly bats and coquis were attacking them for no good reason.
2. There is no goal for the player to follow, nor is there any sort of guidance available to them. The game starts, and there's no title screen; straight into the fray goes Ignacia. Unless if the player is playing on Itch.io there's no way for them to figure out the controls without someone telling them. After reaching a certain point the level ends abruptly, without any sort of reward for the player. I left out the most important parts of the experience, and this is due to not completing tasks in order of highest to lowest priority.
3. For this project I didn't take my own advice and neglected playtesting weekly. In total I would say I did a little under 10 playtests that weren't myself. What made matters more difficult for myself was the time in production at which I decided to start playtesting. This resulted in a delay of information feedback. I cannot revise a project based on information I don't have, or information that doesn't come early enough, because then how can I know if what I'm designing is what my target audience even likes?

Production Methodology

All assets, ideas, and tasks were shared among the team through a project page. For the time I was with the team, we met 4 times a week for about 4 hours a day. Stand-ups were held at the beginning and ending of each session. I set daily goals for myself and asked my teammates to set weekly goals for themselves. In the Miro page we used a Kanban table for creating, assigning, and prioritizing tasks. What was really successful about using this method was having different rows for each of the team members; design, art, programming, and audio.

Team sessions were held via Zoom. Two of my teammates were based in Puerto Rico, and the third in Massachusetts. Time zones weren't really an issue for anybody, which was a good thing.

Project builds were churned out too slow. Ideally I would've wanted to build every week, but my pacing with delivering builds to be playtested was about one every two weeks.

Potential Futures

• In my MVP statement I mentioned how I wanted to at least complete 1 full level. There was meant to be a second half to what I made out of this project. Ignacia travels to her motherland to find her 4 older siblings who she's never met. In the forest level she'd meet Chegui. Each sibling greets her with a challenge, and upon passing the challenge the level is complete, and on to the next level.
• While it's not present in the final prototype, my musician did design a theme song for the level. I ended up leaving it out because it would've been better suited for the challenge half of the level which, again, didn't even get designed. My vision for the soundtrack of this game lay in traditional and modern Latin American musical genres such as Salsa, Bolero, and even Reggaeton. Each level would have a different genre, which in my opinion would add a lot of charm to each sibling.

What I learned

• Expect paths to goals to derail, and improvise. When working with a small amount of resources and a short schedule, it's very crucial as a leader to learn how to adapt project plans to sudden circumstances. Early in production it became painfully clear that I over-scoped my plans for this game. I began missing deadlines, crunching, and pushing back important tasks and playtest dates. A game that was planned to have 4 levels eventually became 3, then only half a level. What made matters worse is I lost a whole 2 weeks of production time, the first from attending GDC in San Francisco and the second from falling ill to COVID-19 immediately after that. Mentally I was beaten down after that, but I decided it was best I lower my self-expectations and focus on creating just one good level for the game.
• As a team manager, it's important to trust your teammates' abilities. There was already a lot of stress trying to figure out who to hire, where to find them, and how to get the money to pay them for there time. Once I got my team, I then had to assign them tasks. I was afraid to overwork my teammates, so at the beginning I didn't give them too much to do. But once I saw how fast they were knocking out tasks with good quality work, I learned not to underestimate them. They taught me a valuable lesson about teamwork. For the 4 weeks I had them I picked up the pace and gave them more to do, thus lightening the load on my end and creating a good prototype.