Stunt Granny

I am the sole developer on this project. After a three-month-long design of the game concept, I chose this concept. The long initial design phase is because of the course Game Design 3 at DAE, where we got the opportunity to work on a game project for an entire semester. This involved four sprints of creating concepts, each spanning two weeks. I received the top score of the class of 2025 and a recommendation letter from my professors, mainly because of the excellent design process. This doesn't guarantee a great concept every sprint, but it highly improves the chances by brainstorming, prototyping, playtesting, and iterating thoroughly. It was a great learning experience, further improving my skills as a game designer.

The entire design process of the project is visible here, but here's a quick summary: 

Starting off with two random phrases, I start brainstorming and mind-mapping. After I have explored a lot of options, I highlight my favourite concepts or ideas. Then, I continue fleshing out these ideas and potentially combining them if they would create an interesting combination. I look for anywhere between 5-10 concepts to iterate on and then ask for feedback. Afterwards, I evaluate the feedback and do self-reflection, to see which ideas have the most potential. 

I decide on three favorites and research the genre/mechanic/competitors, along with more brainstorming and exploration to improve the concept. When this is done for all concepts, I prototype some features and the core gameplay loop. I do this to avoid any oversights and to see if things are intuitive, fun, risk-free, well-paced, and fit into the general design of the game. These are all prototyped through the best fitting medium (technicalities best in-engine, UI layout or game loop are done quicker on paper). 

When they are all prototyped, I playtest to gather more feedback. After a thorough evaluation of the three concepts and feedback received, I list out the positives and negatives, to make an objective decision on which concept I will continue with. When this choice has been made, it's time to iterate on the concept further. This is done effectively by using the Brainstorm-->Evaluate-->Reflect protocol. This is done on the core gameplay loop to start off, and then done multiple times on the core mechanic. After this, the sprint is done, and I consult with my professors and students to reflect and improve myself and my process for future sprints.

This was done four times over the course of two months and the best game concept was Savage Grandma Drifting, which eventually developed into Stunt Granny, which is now released on Steam. There is a lot more content planned for future updates, this is the early release state which is currently live.