Fastival

Level Design & QA Producer | 47-Person Team | 4 Month Period

Fastival is an arcade racing game built in Unreal Engine 5.3. Race through 3 topsy-turvy tracks against AI or your friends in local multiplayer. Tracks are made even more exciting as players activate short cuts, traps, and use items to take the lead.

Responsibilities

Level Design Producer and Quality Assurance Producer
Led daily Scrums
Organized quality assurance and bug discovery
Organized sprint objectives and daily goals
Created documentation and time estimation sheets for task management
Coordinated cross-disciplinary teams to complete shared goals

Postmortem

What Went Well

The Level Design portion of the Milestone Delivery Document

Supportive Leadership

As Level Design Producer, my role was to support the Lead Level Designer by creating space for her to focus on creative direction. I managed Jira, contributed to Milestone Delivery Documents, and set daily goals. This allowed her to lead one-on-one meetings and guide the vision of the tracks. This partnership helped the levels develop a more cohesive design language without slowing team momentum.

Balancing Availability

I was often needed in multiple places at once, so I became highly disciplined about time-boxing meetings—balancing efficiency with empathy. I relied on the phrase “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out” to keep conversations moving while following up with clarity. I also made listening a core part of my role. On a large team, frustrations can easily get buried, so I intentionally created space for people to share challenges, even if just to vent. These small moments built trust and helped me spot friction points early, before they escalated.

Meeting with the lead producer and programmer producer

Cross-Team Alignment

As a team, we had to adapt to working at a larger scale than we were used to. Communication norms that worked for small teams didn’t always translate well, especially for the artists. Once we established a centralized art asset list and encouraged proactive meetings between designers and artists, our collaboration improved significantly. This helped reduce asset confusion and empowered artists to deliver more confidently.

Team-Focused Quality Assurance

As Quality Assurance Producer on Fastival, I helped keep the team focused by organizing daily bug-based priorities for level designers and I played the game regularly to discover new issues. I worked with designers, artists, and programmers to triage bugs in Jira and partnered with teammates for play sessions. I also introduced a bug bounty list to encourage shared ownership of quality. This hands-on QA process improved both clarity and momentum during late stage development.

Bug Bounty List of scenarios

What Needed Improvement

Managing Bug Volume

This was my first time organizing quality assurance tests and tracking bugs in Jira. I quickly realized how fast bug lists can become unwieldy without clear triage systems in place. This was solved by creating bug hunts based on daily priorities, and working with the programming producer to prioritize and filter the bugs.

Operating with Awareness

I've always known that I can come off as too serious. People have told me this helps bring a level of professionalism to projects, but I know it can also create unnecessary tension if not balanced. This dynamic works best when I serve as a counterweight to someone else’s humor or levity. Going forward, I want to be more conscious about when to hold space for lightness.

Scope and Sensitivity

It was a challenge to make sure everyone felt heard throughout the project. When difficult cuts had to be made it was hard to balance empathy with decisiveness. Even when the decisions were necessary, the emotional toll on the team was real. Moving forward, I want to more clearly communicate the expectations for each sprint and what work should be prioritized, so the project can remain more in scope.

Better Structure and Support

There was a moment in the project when someone felt mismanaged. They weren’t getting the clarity or consistency they needed and the resulting frustration led to a tense outburst. This was a learning experience for me. I recognized that I needed to step in earlier to provide structure and advocacy, and that confusion can look like resistance. Moving forward, I’ll prioritize clearer communication and more quickly move to support someone if they are acting as though they feel lost or underutilized.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse