BirdGang

BirdGang was created as part of the Unviersity of Bristol Computer Science MEng Games Project. It was awarded a first class mark, the highest in the cohort, and judged as “outstanding” by the panel, entering “truly professional territory".

Game trailer and project details video

Project Management

I was selected to be Team Manager for this project. Given its broad scope, a successful outcome required detailed planning and a common vision within the team. From inception, I ensured we spent time discussing our initial ideas, and implemented the Scrum model of Agile development. This ensured user feedback analysis and team progress was communicated clearly during weekly Sprint Review and Retrospective sessions. By making use of Kanban and Figma boards, as well as Gantt charts, we made long and short-term plans for the project. We could then maintain consistent progress and meet each deadline to a high standard. Regular meetings also made certain all team members felt heard, respected, and free to voice their opinions without judgement. When inevitable disagreements arose, I led discussions and formed action points, establishing a culture of constructive criticism and candid feedback within the group. I also made sure we took a User-Centred Design approach, keeping the needs of end users at the forefront throughout. I discuss our project development strategies in more detail in the embedded video @ 5:20.

The Game

In the game, players enter the world as BirdGang recruits and are tasked with finding bad AI people and ruining their day. Players will face four miniboss rounds in the games duration. In each, they must work together to defeat them, using waypoints and help messages to communicate with one another. Each of the two-minute rounds are introduced by a cinematic cutscene and an audio overlay from the gang boss. AI bird flocks also populate the sky and target any players who remain still for too long.