The Mass Effect trilogy is a scifi adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life forms and mysterious uncharted planets. In this dark second chapter, Saren's evil army of Geth soldiers has just been defeated, and humans, who are still struggling to make their mark on the galactic stage, are now faced with an even greater perilÂ….The Iterative Level Design Process of Bioware's Mass Effect 2
Speaker: Corey Andruko (Project Manager, BioWare), Dusty Everman (Lead Technical Designer, BioWare)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Production
Secondary Track: Game Design
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: All
Session Description
This session examines the BioWare Mass Effect team’s new level-creation process, which is focused on maximizing iteration for quality while minimizing rework and cost. This approach to building levels strives to integrate the Design, Art, and Production teams such that the highest-risk level-creation issues are addressed early in the development cycle. Lessons learned from Mass Effect lead to a detailed description of the new level-creation process, and graphical examples of a level illustrate its progression through the necessary phases. The discussion also examines how BioWare is currently implementing this process using elements of Scrum and Lean Development.
Takeaway
Attendees will: - Gain insight into some of the major issues the development team encountered while building Mass Effect at BioWare; - Get a detailed look at the Mass Effect team’s new approach to creating levels while avoiding these issues; - Find out how this new process is working for the Mass Effect team; - Learn about new pitfalls the team discovered that can potentially be avoided on future game projects.
Intended Audience and Prerequisites
This lecture is intended for producers, designers, or any game developer involved in planning, specification, or content creation for game levels. An understanding of modern video game development workflows is recommended.
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