Wastemancer

Wastemancer is a combo-hitting, high-scoring competitive game where players use QWER keys to select spells, then cast them with combinations of the 4 arrow keys. Players are rewarded for perfect combos as they battle trash amalgamations.

Set in a magical future where magic has made life easier, trash is now starting to come to life. You play as part of the Magical Recycling Department, a magical possum sent out to defeat the trash and turn it into recycling.

As Producer for Wastemancer, I brought together a diverse international team from Poland, Sweden, and China to create a complete game within 3 weeks. Here are my key contributions:

• Assembled and coordinated an international team across three countries (Poland, Sweden, China) with different time zones and cultural backgrounds
• Adopted a "leading from behind" leadership style, empowering team members while maintaining project vision and momentum
• Coached the Audio Designer, providing guidance and mentorship throughout development
• Utilized Notion and Jira for comprehensive project management, tracking tasks, milestones, and team progress
• Used Miro for design collaboration and maintaining consistency between disciplines (art, design, programming, audio)
• Facilitated vision alignment across the team, ensuring everyone understood and contributed to the single unified game vision

One of the critical challenges in a 3-week development cycle with an international team was ensuring everyone understood and worked toward the same vision. The concept art process was instrumental in achieving this alignment:

Through collaborative concept art sessions on Miro, we established visual language and design principles that guided every discipline. This shared visual foundation helped bridge language barriers and time zone differences, ensuring that whether someone was working in Poland, Sweden, or China, they were creating assets that felt cohesive and aligned with our magical recycling department world.

Managing a 3-week game development project across three countries required careful coordination and the right tools:

• Notion & Jira: Managed project documentation, task tracking, and sprint planning across all disciplines and time zones
• Miro: Created shared design spaces where the team could collaborate on visual concepts, game design, and maintain consistency between disciplines
• Leading from Behind: Empowered team members to take ownership of their work while providing support, guidance, and removing blockers
• Coaching: Provided one-on-one mentorship to the Audio Designer, helping them grow professionally while contributing to the project
• Vision Alignment: Used concept art and visual references to ensure everyone, regardless of language or discipline, understood the game's core identity