Cai Cai Balao
The game was developed by Look up games. A students game studio based in Copenhagen, as part of the DADIU program for game development.
A fast-paced parkour-lite racing game in which the player needs to navigate through different locations inspired by the streets of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro at breakneck speeds – while dodging obstacles and police officers – in order to be the FIRST to catch a giant hot air balloon that will earn you respect!. The game is based on real illegal phenomena happening for 40 years in Brazil. It was developed in close collaboration with people who are within the balloon chasing scene.
Honorary
Independent Game Festival 2022 Student’s game award
Finalist
Independent Game Festival 2021 Nuovo award
Honorable mention
My Role
As a producer, I solved a variety of issues throughout the development process by paying attention to details and providing a clear vision for the team. I facilitated cross-department communication to ensure maximum efficiency and prioritized the well-being of the team. I provided guidance for overcoming challenges and maintained a macro-level perspective to ask the tough questions. My role was essential in ensuring that the game was completed on time, within budget, and to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.
Challenges
Team Building
What should you do to transform a group of 15-20 students, each with different background, experience and education, into a cohesive team within less than 6 months?
As a Producer, it was my responsibility to ensure a safe space is being created for the each of the individuals to express themselves creatively while sharing a cohesive vision and attitude in collaboration with the rest of the team. My goal was to provide both professional and after-hours platforms for each of the team members to express themselves and encourage on going dialog between all stakeholders.
Problem Solving
Finding solutions for unexpected problems can be a complex challenge, especially when you are in a position that requires discipline, calmness and ambitious regardless of the situation.
To answer complex issues that our studio encountered during production, such as Covid-19 cases, technological issues or communication, I divided each of the issues to short and long term needs and solutions. Short term focused on the individual needs of each of the team members to succeed in his role and intuition. Long term, I looked for the best solution for the team and ways to maximize efficiency and reduce the impact of the problem on the different departments.
Scope
As every studio, our main challenges during the development were time and resources. Ideally, the limitations would be countified and defined from early stage of production. Since the team was newly built, we faced the challenge without prior knowledge of individuals and team capabilities.
To ensure the scope fit to our limitations, It was my responsibility to build, together with each of the individuals a work plan that will fit their skills while answering our product needs. The scope had to be evaluated daily to ensure agile product development process and to encourage individual sense of agency and mastery among all of the team members.