Fastival
Lead Producer | 12 weeks | 47-Person Team
A colorful and fast-paced arcade racer set in a lively carnival. Navigate dynamic tracks filled with playful obstacles and hidden shortcuts while competing against up to three other players.
As lead producer my responsibilities included…
Owning the product backlog on Jira and collaborating with discipline leads to create tasks
Closing the Project: Defining the key priorities from Beta to Release to Manufacturer (RTM)
Creating sprint schedules
Scheduling and running leads meetings and Scrum of Scums
Presenting milestone progress to stakeholders
Organizing and running user playtesting
Fastival Sample Documentation
What I learned producing Fastival…
As Lead Producer, my responsibilities fell into two buckets: fostering an environment where great work could thrive, and ensuring the game was completed to the highest quality within the limited time available. This retrospective reflects the lessons I learned in both areas.
1. Team Buy-In:
One of the biggest challenges of Fastival was aligning the team toward a single vision. Every developer was incredibly talented and passionate, each bringing their own ideas about what the game could or should be. However, we could only create one game, and it would take the entire team working together to do so. This experience taught me the importance of embedding the game’s theme into every aspect of development. By incorporating the carnival aesthetic into everything—from the studio environment to documentation and even morning announcements—I helped create a shared identity that united the team around a common vision for the game.
For more on team buy-in check out my blog featured on Game Developer: Retrospective: A producer’s guide to team buy-in
2. Delivering Bad News:
As a producer, having difficult conversations is part of the job. For Fastival, this came when our team fell short on the Vertical Slice milestone. I led a retrospective to openly discuss our shortcomings and how we could improve as a team. The issue, however, was in my delivery. When I addressed the team, I was clearly frustrated and disappointed, emotions I felt because of my passion for the game and our success. What I didn’t realize at the time was that my attitude was unintentionally spreading that same frustration to the team.
As a result, the next morning I apologized for letting my emotions show and re-approached the retrospective with a more positive outlook. I framed it as a great opportunity for us to rebound and demonstrate our true potential. The team responded well, and the next milestone turned out to be our best, critical in securing approval to publish on Steam. I learned that, as a producer, you embody the health of the game. If you’re feeling down, the team will likely follow suit. It’s essential to be the positive force that keeps the team motivated and focused.
3. Communicating in a Variety of Ways:
As the lead producer, I had the most visibility across all aspects of the project. It was my responsibility to ensure that crucial information was communicated clearly to the right people. Through this experience, I learned that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to effective communication. For some teams and developers, mentioning priorities in my morning announcements was enough, while for others, a Slack message, Confluence page, or Jira task worked better. The key takeaway was that the information needed to be accessible across multiple platforms, ensuring everyone stayed informed.
Fastival was not only my first leadership experience in game development, but also my first game project on a large team (47 people). Early on, my inexperience showed in how I ran meetings. With so many questions to answer, we often let discussions drag on, exploring every possible angle. I quickly learned that focused discussions were key. Timeboxing meetings helped clarify goals—allocating a set amount of time for each topic—and ensured we stayed on track. This approach led to more efficient meetings and helped us address the critical questions effectively.
4. Timeboxing Meetings: