Four Guns was a great project, and I really enjoyed working on it with the team. A lot of the content that we wanted to put into the game did not get finished by milestone 4 unfortunately, but we plan to finish the game over the summer. The two main causes for this lack of content were poor scheduling and time management, and over-scoping.
Much of the original ideas we had were not focused on game mechanics but rather on story, cool interactive “mission hubs”, implementing different game modes, and a plethora of other very specific ideas that were unnecessary for simply building a game that works and is fun to play. We were all dreaming a bit large about what Four Guns could be, and unfortunately that backfired on us. Initial implementation of the engine to begin with was successful however.
In the first few weeks Dan and Sean had worked out most of the engine and architecture, and Jim and I were busy working on artwork and music. We ended up having to divide some of Dan and Sean’s plans between Jim and me so that we would be able to get a grade for the programming sections, and Shiv was busy working on the level editor. This ended up working out for the most part because we got a fun multiplayer game after the second week with some really great looking artwork. I believe getting to this stage so quickly was a mistake however, because we let the rest of the project fall onto the backburner while we all got other homework done.
For the most part things went right for the project. We have a working prototype that has some interesting elements and is fun to play. I enjoyed working with everyone, and this project really helped me to realize that I would much rather be an artist than a programmer (along with Professor Schwartz’s class). This project also gave me a great insight into what working in a game-design team is like and added a great piece to my portfolio which will both be invaluable to me in the coming years. I hope to continue to work with this team and that the project becomes much more than a prototype over the summer.