Zeus, Please: A Post-Mortem

After a month of development and iteration, time has come for Zeus, Please to be retired from games being actively worked on.

A group endeavour, the game was intended to fulfil the role of a hybrid analogue/digital game. Looking back, perhaps this was the first key moment in our path to where we are today.

We brainstormed ideas for a hybrid game almost immediately after a hearing a barrage of potential ideas from which we might pull inspiration. We quickly agreed that we wanted a similar feel to BullHorse, a role-playing election race game, and upon review this is where we could have performed better. BullHorse was pitched as a pure board game without any digital component. Our thought processes then drove us to find a way in which a digital application might improve the experience of such a game.

Perhaps we erred when we insisted on the crux of the game being analogue-based. It limited our potential view of the app as nothing but a sideshow to the analogue component. This was made very clear when we had visitors from the industry critique our progress, and they unanimously noted that our project, while good in ideation, was lacking in the relationship between paper and screen, noting that the app could easily be replaced by deck of cards and some dice.

Perhaps that was due to the utilitarian state of the app at the time of their visit. As sole digital engineer for the project, I was left to prioritise aspects of the app as I saw fit. We all agreed that having a playable version of the game was of primary importance to being able to fully playtest our creation. But perhaps we were mistaken to favour function over form. Once our aspirations for Zeus were explained to our visiting industry experts, we were met with far more jubilance than before, suggesting that what we ought to have valued more was giving the Zeus app a life and character of its own. Bringing into existence some uniqueness would have made it easier to communicate our end goal - which, reflecting upon our task, was the underlying point. Not so much to create a playable prototype, but to sell an idea for a finished product.

In terms of rating my personal performance in the project, my primary criticism is that I didn't make enough effort to keep up-to-date with everyone else's progress. Far too often I immersed myself in work without an understanding of the bigger picture. Perhaps, had I taken a broader view, some of our issues would have come to light in time to be addressed properly.

As it is, I am still pleased with what I managed. Whenever I take up a task I like to emerge from it not only having given it my best shot, but also more knowledgeable than when I started. The two main aspects I learned during this project, I hope, will serve me well in the future. Speech recognition is perhaps more niche, but I am especially happy that I expanded my skillset to include the ability to read in external files (in this instance, CSVs), which not only makes game balancing easier, but also opens up the role to all members of a team (Excel is easier to understand than C#).

My contributions outside of Unity were primarily as playtester and another brain with which to storm. It's difficult to attribute specific elements to people when ideas are rapidly being thrown out, but, to my recollection, in our first brainstorm, I suggested the Ancient Greek theme as a way to avoid controversy in an election-based game. I also did preliminary character design for Poseidon, and was extremely pleased with his final form!

I would like to take this time to thank my team for being a pleasure to work with, as well as for being awesome people in general. Part of the reason I was so lackadaisical in tracking other members' progress was because I had the utmost confidence that, come due date, things would definitely be finished! You guys are awesome, and I'd happily work with any of you again!

Sam A

Technical Director, Team Zeus