What I Learned…

1. Being on the Same Wavelength

Working in large teams requires not only strong leadership, but also communication and trust from every member. Luckily, communication and trust were among the strongest aspects of our team throughout the project. Our collaboration felt natural rather than forced, which allowed everyone to comfortably and openly share feedback to catch issues early and often. No team or person is perfect, and while we definitely had some difficult discussions and decisions to make, we were able to come together as a whole to make them for the betterment of the project. As the level design producer, I felt that the design team communicated exceptionally well and adapted quickly to problems with many creative and effective solutions. We were all working together as one unit, rather than as individuals tackling separate tasks.

2. Harnessing Skepticism into Momentum

Team buy-in is hard, especially with large teams of developers who all have unique ideas that could fit into the game. The initial pitch from our game designer left many members skeptical that the project would work out. Many members pointed out that the scope of the project initially felt “almost impossible to get done” within the allotted timeframe, especially from the design team. I would be remiss to say that I wasn’t with them initially, as the project seemed over-scoped and difficult to pull off at first. However, I trusted the team and their skill sets to get us to the finish line and make something amazing. As production continued and the game began to take shape, confidence in the project and the team behind it grew exponentially, resulting in strong alignment and motivation across the board. I consider this one of the most important lessons for me, as it showed how much team buy-in depends on trust, scope clarity, and consistent progress.

3. Finding the Fun First

Our pre-production was short, but it allowed us to start figuring out what was fun not only for our players, but also for ourselves. The designers were hard at work researching what makes power-ups, tracks, environments, and hazards enjoyable in the kart racing genre. For us, being able to defy gravity and drive essentially upside down or around unbelievable bends was both intriguing and fun. Establishing these core game mechanics early on gave us ample time to iterate and polish the tracks, driving experience, and power-ups.

4. Don’t Rely on One Person

One major lesson I learned was not to overload a single team member with too many essential tasks. We ran into this early in production, when many developers were taking on multiple systems that were critical to the game’s success but weren’t shared with anyone else, making them the sole owners. When only one person fully understands a system, it creates bottlenecks and risks if that person gets stuck or becomes unavailable. By spreading responsibilities and knowledge across the team, we made development smoother and ensured that multiple people could step in to fix issues when needed.

5. Menu's Were Our Achilles Heel

While the team and I had many positive outcomes from this project, menus ended up being our Achilles’ heel. Even though we completed them in the end, they were consistently the hardest part to implement and polish, requiring more time and QA than we had initially anticipated. This struggle directly impacted our ability to include multiplayer functionality, which had to be cut very late in production. The experience reinforced just how deceptively complex seemingly simple systems can be, and how important it is to plan and iterate early, even for parts of a game that seem “basic.”