Kettle Grove: Critter Crafters

13 Person Team

Kettle Grove: Critter Crafters is a cozy game where you play as a frog or a toad crafting supplies for the villagers in the whimsical village of Kettle Grove.

This online co-op game is meant to be a fun way to connect with friends and play low key minigames as you upgrade the town.  Intended to be finished completely in about 35 min, there are 3 villagers you can help.  After you finish crafting their item requests, you can spend quality time with them by having tea parties, going fishing, or just enjoying time at the saloon.

Producer

My main role in the project was as the producer.  Our team of 13 included 2 fully remote workers that I coordinated with.

• One Week sprints: I switched our team from two week sprints to one week sprints during our Beta and Polish phases. We found the shortened sprint periods helped us pivot as necessary.

• Kanban: I worked to maintain our Kanban boards (We used HacknPlan) and detailed our feature requests and bugs there.

• Morale: The game's build timeframe was tight, and we had a lot we wanted to accomplish.  I also worked hard to make sure every one of them felt comfortable coming to me about ideas, issues, and anything else. I noticed it helped alleviate stress, confusion, and made for an overall warm environment to work in.

Lead Designer

As the lead designer, I made sure all of the game's implementations were working as intended. Being the producer as well, I was able to pick up a lot of tasks to ensure more got done in the timeframe.

• Wardrobe: The wardrobe in the game was something we were able stretch into after looking at the state of the game.  It helped give our players a sense of satisfaction as they completed tasks.

• Exploration: At first each order would have a timer, but after playtesting we found that it actually detracted from the experience. After removing it, we felt comfortable adding exploration, and the feedback was extremely positive!