1/28 Assignment | Game Jam Postmortem

[Professor Arevalo]

Rubric: GGJ_2025_Rubric.pdf

Post the following based on the criteria from the attached rubric:

• Basic info -
  • Game Title: What game did you work on?
  • Team Members: Who was on your team and what were their roles?
• Postmortem
  • Written reflection describing wins, losses, & general thoughts. Refer to the rubric for specific prompts.
• Master Task List
  • Screenshot and/or write-up of all tasks & assets assigned to you.
• Syncsketch link of all of your work
  • Include any rigging videos/screenshots and at least one 3/4 view of each animations you worked on.
  • (Bonus) Any game captures of your animations in addition to the Maya playblasts

[adgarza8]

Adrian Garza


I worked on Sunken Gears. My team members were Adham Aantiq (Programmer), Lourdes Castro (Environment Modeling), Trinity Torres (Character Modeling), and Julian Gamez (Animator).

• Wins: Overall I believe our team had really strong communication, and we were all open to criticism and made changes according to what the team wanted.
• Losses: There were some moments of miscommunication where we were confused about art direction along with not having a proper list of assets that we would have needed. We also weren’t testing our assets properly in the engine till the second to last day, so I we ran into several issues with all of the assets.

General Thoughts: I’m happy with the game we ended up shipping and I believe we all gave it our best effort, and I really enjoyed working with my team.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/VFGvpoIoQ22z

[Meg Villanueva]

Meg Villanueva

I worked on the Kitsune game! My teammates were Austin (Programmer), Yessenia & Chris (Modelers), and Nate as the other animator.

Our team had tons of wins! Although we didn't win any awards, I without a doubt believe we had one of the best forms of communication compared to other teams. Always meeting up at school, constantly updating on teams, everyone was incredibly active and was letting every part of the team know what was going on at all times. The overall completion of the project went very well and we were able to ship it, which was everyone's main goal. I feel as though our modelers also did a great job capturing the theme and environment of the game (I love what they did)!
A huge loss for us was just.. making the game too ambitious. Austin was an incredible programmer and absolutely capable, but I think the scope got beyond us and we tried to implement too much in too little time. As a result, we weren't able to have polished mechanics or a game that felt good playing. Lots of issues importing assets into unity until we were shown in class, but before then it was difficult.
Definitely think overall it went awesome. I think animators need to get back in engine more often to help with importing things and just working in engine in general. Big area for improvement I feel is just understanding how to animate FOR engine. As in, understanding how fast the game will take the player input and how itll affect the animation (and to not make them too long / to time them better to the mechanics of the game which, would be easier to understand if we were just in engine more).

We didn't have an assigned list, but we had verbally told each other on teams and in person (since we saw each other every single day) what the expectations of each person were. For me, my goals were:

-Rig the main player character (proxy + final)
-Animate the run, death, bubble throw, and grapple gun animation. (Nathan was in charge of the idle, walk, jump, and crawl. He had one extra than I did, but I had rigged so it was pretty balanced.)
-Basically art direct the whole thing (created concept art, intro cinematic, win / loss state, minimal ui, etc)

I generally try to take hold of being in charge of animations within projects, so I wanted to kind of take a back seat and let Nathan take on most of it while I did more of the art direction and technical stuff. I always try to make things a specific way, and I feel like I need to be more lenient and let it go, so I wanted Nathan to do more of the integral animations. I mainly art directed, most times speaking with the modelers and programmers overseeing their models and the implementation of them and how to improve or incorporate the overarching theme more.


Want to clarify a few things:
-In maya, the rigs eyes are transparent and didnt work until they were in engine. The texture was technically working but it just looks broken in maya.
-Since our game was a 2.5d, we specifically animated to a side angle. The 3/4ths is messed up as a result, so I'm not going to include it despite the rubric since it wasn't really considered. I hope this is acceptable.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/YZGsZqgMAaLT/

[ChayaNF]

Chaya Fuller

• Basic info -
  • Game Title: Oil Oasis
  • Team Members: Allen : Rigging ,Animations, Production Management , Blake : Programming , Sebastian : Environment Modeler and Enemy 2 Modeler, Daniel: Character modeling, and Prop modeling
• Postmortem
  • Wins: My team had very good commutations, and worked really well together, and overall even thought we didn't win any awards we had a great time.
  • Losses: I feel like the loses we had is the game didn't turn out the way we would have wanted.
  • Thoughts: Overall I really enjoyed game jam, and I would do it all again with the same team .
• Master Task List
  • I also did found the in-game Music

All Animation I Have Done: https://syncsketch.com/sketch/HlWElsi4ffRo/

[Nathan Garcia]

Nathan Garcia

I worked on Bubbles and Booty; Working with Benjamin (Animator), Ashton (Programmer), Aaliyah (Modeler), and Hailee (Modeler)

Wins:

- Great Communication was established when teams were assigned and maintained strong communication throughout the entire project. Any problems were quickly brought up with each other and were solved quickly. I do believe that our communication was a key factor throughout our development of the game, and due to that, many hurdles were avoided that may stem from poor communication

- We had meetings daily apart from Wednesday, these dailies were instrumental to us as they not only were a strong point of communication. But we were able to shift the direction and prioritization of tasks according to our progress for the day. Our game would have been too large in scope had we kept our original plans when we finalized concepts on Sunday. For example, we had an ending cinematic for when you won, animations for the Urchin and Trash... However, concerns were brought up Tuesday due to rigging issues Monday slowing Ben and I's progress dramatically, We had decided to scrap the Trash and Urchin animations and delay the Ending Cinematic to only if we had the spare time. We did not. This reduced the animators workload substantially, as we already had a Main Character rig, Fishman rig, Eel, Shark, and Crab rig, and still needing to create animations for all of them.

- Our tasks were discussed with each other as a team and as individuals. Ben and I maintained extremely high communication with each other, we had assigned tasks, with Ben mainly taking on the tasks of rigging most of the characters while I focused on most of the Animations. I still rigged, mainly the Shark and Eel, as well as gathering reference. This early on allowed us to cover as much ground as we could in a limited time. We also shifted tasks with each other after establishing who was doing what. Originally, I was supposed to rig the crab, and Ben was to rig the Eel, though I did the animations for the Eel and he for the Crab, we decided to switch the rigging tasks and he took on the responsibility of doing the Ending Cinematic (I was originally supposed to do it), but after he raised concerns about potential workload differences, we both agreed that it would be best for him to do it, if we did have the time.

- Conflicts were resolved quickly and without hostility. I had messed up the exports to Ashton twice, both times he was quick to communicate, and after finding out the issues, we were able to get them fixed quickly. Another instance was the Eel proxy that was provided to me had too many polygons and made the project slow on Maya. I brought up my concerns with the Modelers and they had gotten me a finalized rig with much more optimization quickly. Same with Ben, when we had disagreements on certain topics, we took the time to talk about them without any hostility.

- We had our most fundamental concepts down before the theme was announced. This saved on time tremendously and when we were making our own concepts and then discussing them. Since we already knew what direction we were going in, we were able to focus everything on that direction, making our concepts flow much easier and we were able to more effectively draw upon each others concepts.

Losses:

- Early hiccups, the rigging problems we faced was mainly a misunderstanding we had with weighting skins. It took away time for the game that could have been used in animations. Perforce was also a struggle at the start.

General Thoughts:

I thought overall that for my team, it was smooth sailing after the hiccups and problems were fixed... I loved working with my team and wouldn't mind doing it again with them



We had a task list, but I decided to put what I worked on

https://www.syncsketch.com/sketch/ZBb9Shx5qhaL/

[JocelynHop:3]

Jocelyn Hopkins

• Basic info -
  • Game Title: What game did you work on?
    • Suds and Whiskers: S.H.I.T. Labs
  • Team Members: Who was on your team and what were their roles?
    • Nick: Programmer
    • B: Main Environment Modeler
    • Bianca: Character/Environment Modeler
    • Josh: Main Character Rigger/Animator
• Postmortem
  • Written reflection describing wins, losses, & general thoughts. Refer to the rubric for specific prompts.
    • Wins: Our team had excellent communication and a great work dynamic. We ensured to get all of our assets done and made sure to communicate our estimated time of completion. We all helped each other out if we needed it.
    • Losses: We ended up not making the final game that we initially wanted, as all of the code Nick had worked on broke after he built the game mere hours before we needed to submit it. Not all my animations were utilized, as they were either cut because there was no time to implement them or they were going to be used but didn't get implemented and working in time before the final turn-in. We also had some technical difficulties with the textures of the characters to Unity, but with the professor's help, it was able to get fixed, and we realized we were utilizing Perforce incorrectly, but that also was learned quickly with the help of the professors (specifically professor Garcia)
    • General Thoughts: If we're going to be using Perforce, we really need to have a universal lesson and experience with it prior to utilizing it in Game Jam. Specifically for our team, we were so concerned with messing something up and breaking our game and losing all of our progress because we were unsure of how to properly use Perforce, we ended up using it improperly and had to be taught the proper way one day before the final turn in. For me personally, I learned I need to understand implementation more in Unity. I understand how to do it in Unreal Engine, but not so much in Unity, and I was very hesitant to put my animations in Unity to check them out of concern that I'd mess up Nick's game files. It wasn't until Nick taught me how to do it and the steps he wanted me to take to ensure I wouldn't mess anything up while also getting my animations into the engine that I was able to comfortably put my animations in the engine.
• Master Task List
  • 
• Syncsketch link of all of your work

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/FhkKGvBgGSyQ/

[Roberto]

I worked on Bubble Boogy Blast with Melanie Alvarado the programmer Cara King the character modeler, and Maria Rodriguez the environment modeler. I, Robby Garcia, was the Animator.
Wins: I was very efficient at completing my tasks and I was always open to feedback. The rest of my teammates did a great job with their assets as well.
Losses: I had to work from home on friday. Despite constantly messaging my teammates on teams, they all ignored me. The gun animations I made were not included in the final build.
General thoughts: I should be with my teammates in person no matter what.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/VYUE9HwIBTOu/

[benvaz722]

Benjamin Vasquez

Basic info:

Game Title: Bubbles and Booty

Team members:
Koranek, Ashton - Programmer
Mickle, Aaliyah J. - Modeler/ PM
Davis, Hailee M. - Modeler
Garcia, Nathan R. - Animator
Benjamin "the Goat" Vasquez - Animator

Postmortem:

Overall, I had a great time working in this team. What went well, I would say the communication between team members. That is... not being afraid to say what they need from each other. The other good thing was having someone who acted as a sort of PM. Aaliyah keep making sure we did dailies so we could all understand where in development is our assets. When it comes to animation team, I believe we communicated well with each other. It helped that I am taking a PM minor, so I developed/ Managed a schedule/ task manager so everyone (especially the animators) can keep track of the state of the animations. The losses I would say is my inexperience with rigging and skin weighting. This took a lot of my time as I encountered issues after issues, and it ended up taking up the time I could have spent making/ refining my animations. I wish I asked Professor LI on a crash course on NgSkinTools earlier on the week. I re-weighted the main character at least 4 times throughout the week. I have decided to use Maya skinning tool, and it felt like whenever I fixed an issue it broke something else. Professor Garcia helped me understand the mechanics behind skin weighting and paired with Professor LI advice allowed me to make the fishman so much quicker than the main character. I eventually decided to re-weight the main character using the NgSkinTools for the last time. It is a loss in regarded to my timing for the project, but it was a great learning point... so win? Overall, it was a great experience, and it gave me a feel on what it is to work full time in studio.

Master Task list:



Syncsketch link:

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/c4BB4OeLbaw1/

[NearSharp]

Nathan Munoz

Basic info
I worked on the game Kitsune. My teammates were Austin Briller (Programmer), Yessenia Montalvo and Chris Sooksawat (Modelers), and Meg Villanueva (Animator).

Postmortem

Wins:
My team had great communication, we met with each other as often as possible and if we weren't at school we would talk through teams. At every point of the process, we were always working on something.

Losses:
Time got to us at the end and the rush to complete the game didn't allow for some features to be included. The walk animation didn't play properly and caused the character to slide a complete oversight by the team was that our character lacked an animation that faced the opposite way. We thought that could be done by the programmer but by time we realized it was too late.

General Thoughts:
Overall, I did have a lot of fun working with my team. I really appreciate the amount of faith they had in me to create a majority of the UI’s design and even the title menu and logo. Working with another animator was fun too! We both shared the work equally and it was nice to know I had a reliable partner. The two things I wish we did have more knowledge on is working with perforce and importing into unity. We got very quick lessons on both with one happening during game jam which took time away from the project. This project did allow me to gain more experience drawing digitally which is nice. Overall I had a great team who was always willing to communicate. I wouldn't mind continuing to work with any of them in the future

We didn't have a task list. We were just assigned things that were needed at the moment. After I finished animating, I was put onto UI artwork.
Animations:

-Idle

-Walk

-Jump/Fall

-Crawl/crawl idle

Artwork/UI:

-Title Design

-Title artwork

-Button UI/Button artwork for how to play screen

-Health UI

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/jfVOmTpnQs0X/

[JuGamez20]

julian gamez

• Basic info -
  • Game Title: What game did you work on? sunken gears
  • Team Members: Who was on your team and what were their roles?
    • Adrian Garza was in charge of the Main Character idle, walk, jump, death, and shooting animation. and rigging the character itself
    • Lourdes Castro was in charge of modeling the environment like the walls, platforms, the weapon the main character held, the helmet the scuba zombie was wearing, and the gears around the environment to add a steampunk vibe to it and texturing them as well
    • Trinity Torres was in charge of character modeling like the main character herself, the scuba zombie and texturing them
    • Adham Aatiq was in charge of programming the game and adding everything that we did into the game and making sure it wasn't bugging as much as possible
• Postmortem
  • Written reflection describing wins, losses, & general thoughts. Refer to the rubric for specific prompts.
    • the wins were that I rigged the scuba zombie on time of the tasks due date, and i had help with the critiques of how to better my animations.
    • losses were the cut project that never made it into the game like Lola and trinity were making an anglerfish and crab for me and Adrian to rig and animate but we ran out of time to even start that progress. and the rig for my scuba zombie was causing me problems like the skin weighting was the biggest problem I've had in this project.
    • general thoughts i loved working with this team and I'm happy the game turned out the way it did. but i just wish i knew how to skin weight properly.
• Master Task List
  • Screenshot and/or write-up of all tasks & assets assigned to you.
  • 
• Syncsketch link of all of your work
  • Include any rigging videos/screenshots and at least one 3/4 view of each animation you worked on.
  • (Bonus) Any game captures of your animations in addition to the Maya play blasts
  • https://syncsketch.com/sketch/DnPFDC...2/33146369/f_0

[JoshR]

Josh Rodriguez

1. Basic Info
   • Game title: Suds N’ Whiskers: S.H.I.T Labs
   • Team Members:
     • Nicholas Fite: Programmer
     • Bianca Lugo: Character modeler
     • Brianna Rocha: Environment Modeler
     • Jocelyn Hopkins: Main Gameplay animator
     • Josh Rodriguez: Rigger and assistant animator
2. Postmortem
   • Wins:
     • team had daily meeting for progress reports, estimated turn in times, and upcoming work.
     • Work got done and every one listened to feedback
   • Loses:
     • Everyone was scared of perforce so our file setup wasn’t the best
     • Code that was worked on stated breaking in the final hours, so full game vison wasn’t made
     • Some of my animation weren’t used due to lack of time to implement them
     • The second character that I transferred the rig and edited the skin weight to wasn’t added due to no time to implement
   • General thoughts:

It was for sure a fun experience and I would like to work with this team again

1. Master task list
   • Proxy Rig
   • Proxy skin weights
   • Updated skin weights on new model
   • Transferred rig and skin weights to second character
     • In order to reuse walk and idle animation
     • Character wasn’t used
   • Edited skin weights for second character
   • Stomp Animation
   • Damage left animation
   • Damage right animation
   • Damage front animation
   • Damage Behind animation
   • Reach behind into gun idle (Gun idle/walk by Jocelyn)
   • Reach behind into broom idle (Broom idle/walk by Jocelyn)
   • Hunted down audio & music

Wrote draft script for opening cinematic (due to time wasn’t included)


https://syncsketch.com/sketch/M08oNMOS3Msa/

[ediValle]

Ediza Valle (I THOUGHT WE WERE DOING THIS IN CLASS LOL)

1.
Pere's popping rescue

Polo(Programmer), Ruth (Modeler), Evely (Modeler), Ediza (Me, the one and only solo Animator)

2.
Wins: Good communication.
Loses: Two sleepless nights, rough start, currently have a huge burnout

3.
I drew for the game

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/nMFqwSS4r7ca/

[AllenSalvador17]

Allen Salvador (Secondary Animator)

• BASIC INFO:
  • Game Title: OILY OASIS
  • Team Members: Blake Smith (Programmer), Chaya Fuller (Main Animator), Daniel Cabang (Character Modeller), Sebastian Jurado (Environment Modeller)
• Postmortem

Wins,
Incredibly organized and members arrived consistently and we had multiple check ins through-out the day.
Solidified my love for the craft, and helped me understand the pipeline in it's full capacity.

Losses,
Our team stumbled (sort of) in terms of implementation and while we did figure it out fairly quickly, I wish there were more assignments related.
Because of my unfamiliarity with the pipeline, I could only dish out tasks based on my preconceived notions of how the pipeline was ran, which-- if I had known would've remedied earlier issues.

• Master Task List...

PROXY RIGGING:
Cowboy
Enemy 1
Enemy 2

FINAL RIGGING:
Cowboy
Enemy 1
Enemy 2

ANIM...

ENEMY 2
Walk
Run
Idle
Attack
Super Attack
Roar

ENEMY 2 (Chaya originally worked on, but transferred onto ENEMY 2)
Spawn, Climb
Puddle Idle
Puddle Infect

• Syncsketch link of all of your work

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/5NMooTa465s9/