Pitch

The Darwin Project takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic landscape in the Northern Canadian Rockies. As preparation for an impending Ice Age, a new project, half science experiment half live-entertainment, is launched. It’s called the “Darwin Project” and it challenges participants to survive the cold and fight to the death in a treacherous arena. The Darwin Project offers a competitive multiplayer third person survival experience featuring at its core a new gameplay innovation: the manhunt. In his or her path to victory, a player must survive extreme environmental conditions, track opponents, and set traps in order to win.

Introduction

This internship was the very first I’ve done during my study years. It made me discover the Quality Assurance department, the game dev industry, and more generally a professional environment. I had the luck to work with 5 classmates that I already knew, and this allowed a great teamwork between all of us. We were lead by Orion Curiel.

Production

A typical day would follow this schedule:
– Weekly meeting with the entirety of the studio.
– Testing platform (PC and/or Xbox One) and builds selection (from 1 to 3 depending on the workload).
– Test Plan creation for each testing phase.
– Test Plans update with the new features currently tested.
– Testing (duh!) and tasks allocation.
– Bug reporting in Jira.
– Jira Database update (deleting duplicates, modifying older tickets)
– Weekly assembling of players’ feedback (Discord channels, Customer Service, Social Media…)
– Sending End of Day Report, detailing tested platforms & versions, major issues, and newly appeared bugs.
We mostly used the Google Suite (Docs, Sheets), Jira and Slack.

I specialized in the Show Director‘s testing and bug tracking. I was the QA Tester who knew the best the available features, the different map interactions voted by the Twitch viewers, and their most common issues.
In addition, the studio organized several tournaments with famous Twitch streamers and influencers. I had the opportunity to help organizing one of these.

During my time at Scavengers Studio, I had the chance to live through an economic transition, from a Premium to a Free-to-Play perspective. As Fortnite‘s success was growing, a store with micro-transactions and a currency system has been established. A Battle Pass was considered as well, but never implemented in-game during my time there.

About Scavengers Studio

Founded in 2015, Scavengers Studio is an independent Montreal-based video games studio. Our team is composed of highly talented industry veterans who are driven by their mutual appetite for innovation and for shaping the future of the video game industry. We aim to create the next generation of high quality interactive experiences for players, streamers, and spectators while enabling creators to usher in a new age of gaming and media.

Scavengers Studio Official Website
Darwin’s Project Official Website