Junior SMU students successfully ship large-scale team game through unprecedented circumstances due to the Covid-19 pandemic
SMU Guildhall released its newest game, HaberDashers, on Wednesday, May 27. HaberDashers is an arcade kart racing game for 1-4 players inspired by The Borrowers by Mary Norton and Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty.
The game takes place in a house much like your own – except that in this house, tiny people live in the walls and come out to play whenever the humans have gone.
HaberDashers: Tiny Racers in a Great, Big World
In this PC kart racer, players control miniature humanoid inhabitants of an everyday home. Design your tiny kart, explore the big world around you, pick up items, and race to beat your competition!
Play for FREE on Steam
Developing in Unprecedented Circumstances
The game was created by Cohort 29 in the same collaborative cross-disciplinary style and pace as industry-standard game production, as part of SMU Guildhall's Team Game Production curriculum. While the project centered around the creation of an arcade kart racer, providing individuals with experience working in Unreal Engine 4 on a racing game, its ultimate goal was to provide an environment in which team members could learn how to cooperate and coordinate with a team of 50+ people.
This became an even greater mission as a new unexpected challenge came their way: Covid-19.
Because of the pandemic, students had to move to entirely virtual learning and collaboration halfway through the semester and halfway through the game development cycle. This is a feat that could prove daunting for any team, but the C29 team accepted the challenge and used it as an opportunity to strengthen communication skills, task planning, and remote working skills.
The team created the game over the course of 16 weeks of three-hour classes, beginning with two prototypes before moving into full production. Guildhall faculty could not be more proud of their achievements in overcoming never before seen circumstances.
