The Development Process of Cursed By Night

Summary

Cursed By Night is a game developed over the course of a school semester. You play as a newcomer in a strange town filled with monsters. During the day, you must find materials, arm yourself, and arrange the defenses in your house. At night, put your preparations to the test and battle against waves of horrifying enemies.

During the development of this game, I had two roles: programmer and scrum lead. This section focuses more on the management side of things. For my role as scrum lead, I took meeting notes, directed discussion, and logged planned tasks during scrum sessions. I went over all of our planned work to ensure that we covered everything and checked in with people about their progress and any issues that may have cropped up. I also met with our different specialists to help integrate their work and ensure everything worked smoothly, which is a place that my programming role also came into play.

The Proposal

Our team came together around the idea of a horror game with zombies, proposed by Cameron Anthony. We brainstormed interesting directions we could take the game, cycling through genres we could combine it with for interesting results. Eventually, we decided on mixing the “Zombie horror” premise with “Home Renovation.” We decided on a few pillars of our game: “Tactical Scavenging,” “Holding the Line,” and “Mysterious Storytelling.”

Brainstorming

Next, we began developing the idea. We put together a design document and set out inspiration, mechanics, and game elements that we thought would fit the game. From that, our artists began developing concept art.

Post-MVP Development

With our MVP created, we were able to begin receiving feedback from classmates and playtesters. For the project, regular playtest and demonstration sessions were held, which we participated in. After each session, we discussed the feedback gathered and decided what tasks took priority.

The Final Stretch

With our deadline approaching, we began to prioritize getting Cursed by Night to as polished a state as possible. Final revisions were made to mechanics, VFX, environmental design, UI, and we made an effort to ensure as much of everyone’s work was included and fully implemented in the final product as possible.

Early Development

Having outlined what we wanted to see, each member of our team began work establishing important parts of the project for our MVP. Tasks set for these early sprints included: a pixel shader (VFX), environmental modeling and texturing, menu art, inventory mechanics, combat mechanics, and establishing the day/night cycle. We met up weekly to discuss our progress and clarify upcoming tasks.

The Final Product and Post-Mortems

Our project was an at end. For our last assignments, we created promotional materials and an itch.io page to host our final build. We presented our post-mortems to the class, reflecting on the importance of communication and design iteration.