Three cotributions /suggestions I made that helped this project become successful:
1. My main role in this project was a sound designer and sound editor and in charge of creating sound effects. I suggested and created different sound effects such as for linking/unlinking the bloblings and boosters in the game. For the sound effects, I mainly created the fishing hook, linking/unlinking and I was more in charge of editing the sound effects for sound effects that my team made. For example, I added effects into some sound effects such as reverb to the bomb, and UFO booster. Once done with a certain sound effect, I asked my team to get their personal feedback on what they think was good and what improvements can I make. Once approved by my team, I then send the sound effect for feedback by having my teammate edit the sound effect into a video of a the gameplay. After getting feedback, I then edited the sound effect by using eq to remove some frequencies such as whooshing being too much for the paper plane, sound being too impactful due to low ends etc or send it to my team for recreation again. Once edited the sound according to team Recoded's feedbacks and approved, I then edited it to make sure it is high quality and then sent it to their google drive for them to use.
2. As the team leader of this project I had to manage my team and coordinate with my team so that everyone played their part and contribute in their own ways and so that one person would not be carrying this project alone. I assigned a tasks for each team member and myself each week and coordinate team meetings each week during the project whenever neccessary. For example, in a week, one team member will be working on the music, two members will be working on sound effects and one will be working on editing the sound effects into the video into the game. Each team member will also be providing their valuable feedbacks to each other on their works before I sent the work we did for the day for feedback from Recoded.
3. I recommended leveraging Slack for regular updates and feedback sessions with Recoded. This approach facilitated more structured and organized communication, ensuring that all feedback was promptly addressed and integrated into our work. This contribution streamlined our workflow, and help to cater the sound effects and music to what Team Recoded wants leading to improved overall quality of the project's deliverables.
Three things I learnt/overcame:
1. A challenge my team had while working with Team Recoded was that they were giving slow replies. Despite the slow replies, the feedback we received was invaluable in refining our music and sound effects to their liking and making it better overall. This experience underscored the importance of incorporating feedback effectively and being open to critique, which has made me more receptive and responsive to input in my work, ultimately enhancing the quality of my contributions.
2. At the beginning of the project, we jumped into creating sound effects and music by brainstorming our own creative direction based on what we thought suited the game. For instance, our first draft of the linking/unlinking sounds used vocals. However, after submitting our work for feedback, we realized it didn't align with the client's vision, and we had to start over. After we sent the first draft, the client provided references for what they wanted such as a reference to a game called Tsum Tsum and music references that they have. We then changed to make non-vocal sound effect for linking/unlinking sounds and also changed the music style to suit the different background music style they wanted. This experience taught me the importance of asking for references before starting any creative work. If we had requested these references from the start, we could have saved time and effort by avoiding the need to scrap initial ideas and create new tracks based on the given guidelines to make sure that it suits more to their liking.
3. Lastly, I learnt that it is important to be adaptable. During the first few weeks of the project, we asked for the developer build for the game so that we are able to make the sound effects for the game easily since we can listen to the sounds from the different game level mechanics. However this developer came at a very late timing during the June holidays when my team were busy and some time later, they took the developer build offline for maintenance and hence we were unable to access it. Not receiving the developer build forced us to adapt our workflow and find alternative ways to progress with the project such as playing the game as much as we can and since there were a lot of levels, this really took a lot of time which was not ideal. This situation improved my ability to adapt, ensuring that we could still meet our deadlines and deliver high-quality work despite unforeseen obstacles.
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