For Survive

Tags: Game Design Team Collaboration

Date: Oct. 2019 - Dec. 2019

My Role: Lead Producer, Designer, and Lead Artist.

Team Size: 4

A collaborative experimental turn-based strategy game about surviving recurring disasters through resource collection, allocation, and civilization development.

Strategy Game

FOR SURVIVE

For Survive is a turn-based strategy game developed by our four-person team over a short course-project timeline. Players manage resources and make strategic decisions to reduce the losses caused by random disasters that occur each round. Rather than centering victory on defeating enemies, the game asks players to survive for a specified number of days. To survive, players expand and maintain their civilization while responding to disasters that threaten their resources, population, and long-term stability.

Game Arts: The Disaster Card -- "PLAGUE"

FOR SURVIVE

Game Design Team Collaboration

As the lead designer, I developed the core concept, theme, and gameplay structure for the project. I refined the rules and player flow through multiple rounds of paper prototyping and playtesting. I also pitched the design during Worcester Polytechnic Institute's (WPI) IMGD5000 course to recruit a development team. Among 25 proposed concepts, my pitch received the highest number of expressions of interest from classmates who wanted to join the project.

Early Development: Paper Prototyping

Middle Development: The Game Interface of For Survive

FOR SURVIVE

Game Design Team Collaboration

One of the primary challenges of For Survive was coordinating communication and production across the team within a limited development timeline. As producer, I divided the development process into smaller phases, each with clearly defined tasks and deliverables. For each task, I assigned a lead team member, an assistant, and a reviewer (with team members rotating across these roles for one another's tasks). This structure ensured that each member led some parts of the project while also supporting or reviewing another member's work, which helped maintain steady progress and cross-team collaboration.

Game Arts: The Resource Card -- "WHEAT-EXTRA"

Game Arts: The Resource Cards and Disaster Cards

The Timeline and Development Phases of the For Survive Project