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Year 2 · Project 04 of 5

Collaborative Production Sprint

5 WeeksTerm 2, Wks 1–5
Hand-out4 January 2027
Deadline12 February 2027
Duration5 Weeks

Simulating a real studio environment, small teams work together to create a small, polished playable experience. This project teaches pipeline integration, communication, production reality, and source control, using agile tools like Trello or Jira. Week 15 involves team formation, sprint planning, and source control setup. Weeks 16 through 18 consist of active production sprints with daily standups, risk checks, and bug triaging, leading to a final polish, playtest, and post-mortem in Week 19.

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Full brief opens

Focus, deliverables, software, the week-by-week breakdown and covered units unlock on the hand-out date above. Tutors can open it early.

Focus

  • Small teams, standups, sprint deadlines
  • Trello / Jira, shared source control (Perforce / Git)
  • Art direction & shared production accountability

Deliverable

Small Polished Playable Experience

Software

UE5Trello / JiraPerforce / GitHub
Unit 12 — Specialist Study
Sequence of Learner Information

Project Outcome

Working in small micro-studios, students will collaboratively produce a small, highly polished, playable video game or interactive experience. The final submission will include a packaged executable build of the game, an archive of the team's project management board (Trello/HacknPlan), and an individual "Post-Mortem" document where each student evaluates their specific specialist contribution and the team's overall production efficiency.

Week by Week

Project Breakdown

How the 5 weeks are structured, stage by stage.

Week 1: Studio Setup, Roles, and the MVP

FocusTeam formation, pipeline architecture, and scoping.

Week 2: Sprint 1 -- The Playable Greybox

FocusThe core loop, daily stand-ups, and pipeline testing.

Week 3: Sprint 2 -- Asset Integration and Art Pass

FocusCross-discipline integration, art direction, and communication.

Week 4: Sprint 3 -- Feature Freeze and Polish

FocusSquashing bugs, lighting, VFX, and audio.

Week 5: Delivery, Packaging, and Post-Mortem

FocusThe final build, presentation, and critical reflection.

Theory

Knowledge, Theory & Context

Agile Methodology & ScrumUnderstanding modern software development frameworks that emphasize rapid iteration, daily communication, and adapting to roadblocks rather than rigidly following a broken plan.
Scope Management (The MVP)The theory of the Minimum Viable Product---learning to design the smallest possible version of an idea that still communicates the core experience, preventing "scope creep" and missed deadlines.
Specialist Study (Unit 12)Understanding how individual specialist disciplines (Tech Art, Environment Art, UI/UX) must compromise, communicate, and integrate their work to serve a unified creative vision.
Industry LinkThis project is the closest students will get to a real job before leaving the course. It shifts the academic focus away from "how good is your art?" to "how well do you work with others?"---the exact metric studios use when hiring juniors.
Practice

Technical & Practical Skills

Version / Source ControlThe crucial technical skill of using repository software (like Git or Perforce) to allow multiple developers to work on the exact same Unreal Engine project simultaneously without overwriting each other's files.
Production SoftwareUtilizing professional task-tracking software (Jira, HacknPlan, or Trello) to assign tickets, track bugs, and manage the backlog of a production sprint.
Pipeline IntegrationThe practical workflow of migrating an asset from 3D software (Maya/Blender), texturing it (Substance), and integrating it into a shared engine space while adhering to team naming conventions and folder structures.
Packaging BuildsCompiling a raw Unreal Engine project into a standalone, playable executable file (.exe) that can be distributed and played without the engine.
Why This Matters

Industry Link

This project directly exposes students to the roles of **Producer**, **QA (Quality Assurance)**, and **Lead Disciplines**, while forcing everyone to act as a collaborative team member. It prepares them for the industry by teaching the "soft skills" that tutorials cannot: resolving creative disputes, communicating technical limitations to non-technical team members, and hitting rigid, unmoving deadlines.

Key Terms

Glossary & Key Concepts

Agile / Scrum
A project management methodology that breaks production down into short, repeatable phases (Sprints) focused on continuous improvement and team collaboration.
Sprint
A set period of time (e.g., one week) during which specific tasks must be completed and reviewed.
Stand-up
A brief, daily team meeting where members state what they accomplished, what they are doing next, and identify any issues blocking their progress.
Source Control / Version Control
A system that tracks and manages changes to project files, allowing multiple users to collaborate safely and revert to earlier versions if the project breaks.
Scope Creep
The dangerous tendency for a project's requirements or features to continuously expand beyond the original plan, often leading to unfinished games.
Feature Freeze
A point in development where no new features or ideas are allowed to be added; all remaining time is spent fixing bugs and polishing existing content.
Post-Mortem
A formal review held at the end of a project to analyze what was successful, what failed, and what processes the team should change for the next project.
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