Bardo is a third-person action-adventure game that takes place in the realm between life and death. Explore the fantastical, shattered world of your own mind by gliding through the sky to reach floating islands and faraway vistas. Overcome your inner demons as they threaten to prevent your ascent back to the world of the living.
Project Summary
I joined the project in the pre-production phase as the Producer of a 22-person multi-disciplinary team. The idea of the project was to turn a visual art concept into a game.
As the producer, I had to create and maintain an effective timeline for milestones and deliverables, and to ensure the team stayed aligned throughout the development. I documented the development process, including decisions made, changes, and feedback that made it easy to communicate with the stakeholders.
For the project, we outsourced an audio designer and a marketing specialist. I handled the external communication for both and kept my team and the stakeholders informed in the process, to ensure transparency.
Scheduling meetings with the department leads and strike team leads helped my team stay on top of deadlines and deliverables. I also coordinated the final aspects of game delivery, marketing, social media management, and release schedules.
Bardo was published successfully in April 2024 on Itch.io and later got a major update.
Team Size
13 Artists
5 Designers
4 Programmers
Role
Producer
Number of players
Single player
Engine
Unreal 5
Platform
PC
Genre
Action-Adventure
Project Planning
Craft, maintain, and communicate release roadmaps and schedules and maintain healthy and efficient communication in the team.
Our team was tasked with developing a game concept, tailored to fit an art concept that was developed ahead of the start of this project. The initial concept was ambitious and required careful planning to ensure we could deliver a polished product on time.
As the producer, my responsibility was to assist the leads with the creation of the Scope Breakdown, make a detailed project plan that outlined the production schedule, and the team’s capabilities, and set clear milestones to track progress. This included coordinating with the art, design, and programming departments to ensure alignment on timelines and deliverables.
I initiated the planning process by organizing a meeting with the team’s leads to define the project's scope. After that, we established strike teams and strike team leads, who broke down the project into manageable tasks. In another meeting, the leads and I established a timeline with milestones and deadlines. I also set up regular check-ins to assess progress and address any challenges with the strike team leads and the department leads. Additionally, I introduced to the project a document for Conditions of Satisfaction as part of Quality Assurance.
As a result of this thorough project planning, we successfully delivered the project and published the game on Itch.io. The organized approach led to improved communication within the team, and the game received positive feedback for the quality of the assets delivered. Ultimately, our structured planning and execution contributed to the project's overall success and helped to build team camaraderie.
Responsibilities
Scope Breakdown
Conditions of Satisfaction (CoS)
I tracked these documents along with a risk log each week to analyze the constraints and dependencies in the project pipeline. Based on these routine check-ups, I developed a plan of action to ensure the project stayed on track.
Team photos
Agile Scrum Implementation
Plan and facilitate Agile Scrum practices, including sprint planning, daily stand ups, and retrospectives, and oversee the day-to-day game development and operations using a project management tool.
Teaching the team how to use Codecks.io and using it for our project management.
For project management, the team used Codeck.io. Previous to this project, none of us had used this tool.
I took the initiative to research the tool before the team started using it. My goal was familiarize myself with the tool to ensure a smooth transition and minimize disruptions.
I researched and tested Codecks.io independently, based on which I created a presentation with tutorials and key features for the team. While the team was working on the plan for the sprint, I designed a structured workflow in Codecks.io that resembled what a developer would see in Jira, which is the tool most of the team had experience with.
During the sprints, I monitored the team progress daily using the Dashboard “Hand View” and the Sprint Velocity to track workload and address blockers efficiently.
In conclusion, I successfully onboarded the team with minimal downtime, Reduced repetitive questions and improved task clarity.I ensured better sprint tracking and quicker problem-solving, and provided valuable insights to leads and stakeholders on scope adjustments and task prioritization.
My beginner’s guide to Codecks.io (2024), approved by Riad Djemili, Codecks-Co Founder
Outsource Management
Coordinated with external workers, oversaw outsourced work quality, and ensured timely delivery of assets and services to meet project requirements.
I was the link between the team and every outsourced person for this project. For communication, I scheduled meetings each week where we would discuss the resources the marketing person needs and formalities like posting time.
For marketing, my team outsourced a person to edit videos, print and distribute fliers, and post on social media.
Me and the marketing person created a work contract and a Business plan for the team with target audience research. Based on this, the marketing person proposed a Marketing plan that both signed off.
I monitored the work and progress of that external tasks, to ensure that the quality of work was consistent and that the deliverables for trailers and posts were following the release schedule of our game.
Managing communications with Outsource and incorporating their schedule within our planning to minimize dependencies.
Feel free to contact me to get access to any of the presentations, documents and templates mentioned above.
Managing and being accountable for 22 people
I quickly discovered that I can’t do everything on my own and that having more people in lead positions is not going to ruin the game, but rather ensure that information is passed through sufficiently.
Working with so many people was new to me, especially because previously I was juggling level design and production in a smaller team with a smaller scope. I learned to appreciate being able to afford more people to take lead responsibilities and having role-specific tasks and expectations clearly defined.
Takeaways from the project
Time-management ans Comunication
I was struggling at the beginning of this project as I felt the need to be fire-fighting the whole time. Respecting my work time and setting strict professional boundaries led me to be better prepared. Scheduling meetings in advance and telling people what they have to prepare for them helped to decrease the stress and miscommunication in the team by 70%.
Creating templates and leaving clear instructions saved my team time in the long run. Everyone in the room feels calmer when they know how long a meeting would take.
Being punctual and prepared goes a long way
My team quickly thought of me as a responsible and accountable producer by simply showing up every day on time and being able to start the day with a few words and the agenda for the week.
A big team doesn’t mean it can afford a big scope
Frequent grooming of the backlog, progress meetings with the leads, and direct communication with stakeholders ensures a healthy scope for the team only if action points are made and followed to adapt the processes to the team’s needs.
Check out pictures from the game!
