Post Mortem: Lymph

This post mortem was done for Lymph, my first game created while attending Digipen.

Lymph provided me my first experience as a producer on a game project. As well, Lymph was also the first game that I have worked on intended with an educational purpose.

3 Things That Went Right

1. Identifying Overscope in Pre-Production
   The team trimmed down the scope of the game in the early stages of pre-production. Keeping in mind their limited time frame, they decided to schedule their time for the creation of only the core essentials of Lymph. Further mechanisms were put on a wish list that would be completed if the project moved ahead of schedule.
2. Defining the Target Market
   Early on in pre-production, the team decided to create a game that provided an educational purpose for children. This goal helped guide many of the team’s design and development decisions. The team always considered how they could make the game more medically accurate while staying approachable for children.
3. Early Prototype
   By designing gameplay mechanics that were not easily comparable to other games, the team decided to build an early prototype of the game that would help test out their design. Doing this also helped the team establish a unified vision for the game. The prototype proved to be useful in providing an understanding of the game’s design to the team members.

3 Things That Went Wrong

1. Poor Schedule Management
   The team had the good start of creating a schedule from the initial stages of the project. Team members were scheduled to work during the same hours, but class schedule differences segmented the teams work hours. The lack of unified work hours meant that redundant work was often created, wasting valuable time. Having the ability to work the same hours would have been beneficial for the project.
2. Low Level of Communication
   As mentioned previously, the segmented work hours proved detrimental to the team. One of the negative effects of working separately was the low level of communication. Not communicating with other team members lead to development mistakes and design follies. The team needed to find some sort of efficient intermediary form of communication if solidified work hours was not an option.
3. Rush into Production
   Lymph was an existing prototype before it was introduced to the team. This lead the team to feel confident enough to rush into production after a quick pre-production phase. The negative effects of this were seen in the late stages of the project timeline, when design and asset oversights started popping up. More time could have been spent in the pre-production detailing out the deliverables of production.