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LAUREN MERRIMAN: So my
name's Lauren Merriman.

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I'm a senior right now.

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I'm actually
graduating in February.

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I took this class
because I decided

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I really want to
make video games,

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and this is a good
class to take.

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My team is seven people,
and we are mostly seniors.

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We made a game about
[? cholera. ?] The other team

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focused on the younger 8 to 13.

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And we focused on a little bit
older-- about 13 and above--

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so we could have a little bit
more complicated mechanics

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and text where we needed it.

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So we didn't really have
to rely on figuring out

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how to make everything
really easy to read.

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So it uses English
that assumes someone

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who speaks English could read
and understand very easily.

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And our game is a strategy game.

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It's real time,
where the days are--

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you have to survive a year
and the days are automatic.

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So you have you go and take care
of four different localities,

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and give them either
soap or water containers

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or electrolytes
to help heal them.

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And later on you
get boiling water.

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And you just have to take
care of these four localities

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for a year.

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So we learned early
on, the class, you

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start by your first project
is just paper prototype.

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And then after, you have
to make digital prototypes,

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but they usually expect you
to have a paper prototype.

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And for this one, they
expected you to do it however

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you wanted to.

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And so we started off
with a paper prototype,

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and we sort of then quickly
implemented it digitally.

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Because there were certain
things that doing it with paper

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would take a long time
to make a calculation.

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But we originally
had part of it was

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you could see on the
screen what the localities,

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where they were.

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And then you would try
to implement things.

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But we didn't have a screen
to help you select that.

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And so you'd tell
us what you pick,

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and then we quickly put it
in the game and reset it.

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So that's what we
originally did, and it

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was really hard to do it
that way because people

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going from the screen to a paper
prototype, they were confused.

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And they didn't really
see how things interacted.

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So then our next big thing
was make it all digital.

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And in the presentation
that you saw,

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we had that original shot of
what the game looked like when

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we had it all digital.

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And it was just a really
poorly designed GUI.

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And it was hard to read
and hard to understand

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and people were really
struggling with it.

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So I actually was the one
who redesigned the GUI,

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and then it went through
a couple of iterations

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with the new GUI.

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So we decided how to make it
the most clear, and I sat down

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and I looked at other strategy
games, mostly Civilization.

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I'm actually not a big
strategy game player,

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so I actually had to
go look around and see

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what other places do.

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And I stole a little
bit from Civilization,

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and a few other games that just
had good elements of design

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that looked clear and
understandable-- even

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to someone who's never
touched the game before.

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And so that's what I
wanted in our game.

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So that's why we implemented
it the way we did.

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And then the game kind of
turned into the way it is now.

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So one of the biggest things
is I'm not a programmer.

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So I was doing either design or
product management or the scrum

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master-- is what
they call it, which

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is someone who has to
take care of the team

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and make everything
fit together.

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Whether it's including art and
music and coding-- making sure

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all those elements fit together
into one cohesive whole.

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And so that's sort of the
role that I started to do

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and then really liked doing.

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At first I thought, on
some of these projects,

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I should take on a
coding role to try

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to force myself to learn.

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But I realized I
didn't really want to.

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I really liked doing
this role instead.

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But you learn it's really hard.

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Especially in a class setting
where people aren't really

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tied monetarily to this class.

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You can't lose your job
if you don't do your job.

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You can do poorly in the class,
but because it's a group thing,

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you might not do that poorly
because the group presented

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like, this is our game.

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And so unless you specifically
call out that person,

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they're still going
to get credit for it.

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And so it was really difficult
as the product manager

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to get people to
do what they said

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they were going to do
in a timely manner,

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and get people to
respond to my emails.

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And so it was really
something that you

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have to get people to
understand-- especially

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towards the end where we
didn't have a lot done,

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and we needed to change a lot--
that there's not a lot of time,

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and there's still a lot to do.

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And then when I finally
got everyone in a meeting

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and they all sat down, we talked
about this, like, everyone,

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you just heard it-- oh,
that's when that's due?

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So I finally got people
in gear, and so I

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wish I could have done this
earlier in the semester.

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It was just this project.

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With the other projects,
people didn't usually

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fall into that trap as much
because it was only two weeks.

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So two weeks doesn't give
you a lot of time to fail.

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You've got to do it quickly.

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And but when it was eight
weeks, it was a lot of time

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and so people are like oh we can
push this off a little further.

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It was really hard.

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I actually ended up having--
I talked to the professors

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to try to figure out a way to
get my team to listen to me.

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And it was still
really hard, but once

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you finally get everyone
together and really lay

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it out very clearly, like the
clarity is what I was missing.

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I thought I was
being very clear,

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and this is how things would do.

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And even with the way
I was assigning tasks,

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I thought I was being
very clear and I wasn't.

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I was really missing
concrete details.

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I said, guys, implement
this idea-- implement

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that you can take the actions.

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But I didn't tell them
this is how it should look.

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This is how it should feel.

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And so when it got
implemented, it

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wasn't what I thought it was.

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And I was like, this is
really disappointing.

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This is really ugly.

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So when I sat down and
redid it and then told them

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exactly what I expected,
things got done faster.

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Because, like we said
in our presentation,

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people weren't really
motivated for this game.

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And so having the motivation
and really vague instructions

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made it that people wouldn't
do it until-- you put that off.

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That's a really hard task.

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I need to figure out
what she expects,

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and then I need to do it,
and I don't really want to.

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So that's something
you put off to the end.

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And so when you give
people clear instructions,

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it makes it easier
just to do it.

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Because they're like,
oh, that's simple.

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I can do that really quickly.

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And so I think that was the
easiest way is when you really

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set clear instructions,
clear deadlines,

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and you can't really
punish people.

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There's no way of slapping
them on the wrist when

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they don't do it.

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You can just not
assign them work.

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And you move it
to somebody else.

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And eventually people
realize that they weren't

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getting assigned any work.

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And they realized just,
hey, I'm not actually

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doing anything for this.

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Can I have work?

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And I said, you have
to do it by this time,

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and if you don't, then
we're pretty screwed.

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So really doing
that, really making

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sure you have clear deadlines
and shifting the work

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around so that people who will
do the work and can do the work

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and have the time to do
work are getting the work.

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And the people who either just
are doing the work or maybe

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don't have the time that
week because that also

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happens, where one week
will be really tough.

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So you shift the
work away from them.

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So you have to be
better about-- I

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think if I had
started being better

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about how I gave assigned
work rather than just

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evenly dividing it, that really
would help with the project.

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So working with
a client was hard

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because he was
unavailable a lot.

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And the times he
did come to class

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he said, if you have
to email me a question,

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it better be really
clear and concise,

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or we're not going to answer it.

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And so luckily,
in the beginning,

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we kind of knew what we
wanted to do with our game.

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And so we just went
in that direction.

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And then whenever
Pablo came into class--

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Pablo was our main client.

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We also had Ellie, but she was
only in class a couple times,

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and so we don't get as
much feedback from her.

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So whenever Pablo
came into class,

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he told us what
we needed to fix,

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and that was the biggest
interaction with him

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that we had.

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At first, we didn't
really know who

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to design it for
because they said,

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we need two cholera
games for everybody.

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And so we were really
unsure and so finally,

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three or four weeks
into the project,

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we talked to the
other cholera team

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and said, what are you doing?

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Because we're going
to do the opposite.

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Because they wanted
two games that

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would be for different groups,
and so then we did that.

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We talked to Pablo the
next time he came in,

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and he said, yes,
this is what I want.

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So luckily we managed
to guess what he wanted.

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It could have gone worse
if we did something

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that he didn't want.

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So if that had
happened, and he said,

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you guys are really going
in the wrong direction,

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I think we would have made
sure to email him more.

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But most of the time,
he's like, I like

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the direction you're going.

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You just need to fix
these sorts of things,

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so that's what we did.