Last Fall, Lawyer.se began a collaboration with Ädelfors Folkhögskola (Folk High School in English). The plan was for students of the school’s indie videogame development course, titled ”Indie Game Studio,” to make a game for Lawyer.se. The students were divided into three groups — which included graphic designers, programmers and game designers — who each were tasked to come up with a game proposal.
Now, the game for Lawyer.se has been picked. To celebrate, we sat down with Fredrik Nilsson, second-year student at Ädelfors who led the team behind the «winning» proposal, for a Q & A.
So, Fredrik, how did you and your team come up with your game proposal?
We had a few themes that are core to Lawyer.se’s mission, like excellence, honesty, timely, safety and inclusive, that we knew we wanted to incorporate. We also knew that Lawyer.se is a global brand and that the people playing this game might not all be seasoned gamers, so we wanted to create something that was easily recognizable, both in graphic style and in what the player is supposed to do. So, we ended up with a story largely advanced through puzzles, with the aesthetics of a superhero world like Marvel or D.C. Comics. It was really all about introducing Lawyer.se as a company that takes care of its clients and clears a path through any obstacle.
How did you divide up the work?
It was all very organic. One second-year student had to be the project manager; we had two in our group — including me — and the other was a graphic designer who didn’t want too much responsibility. I also worked as a project lead for a mobile game during my first year so I had some experience of managing something like this. We had two graphic design specialists, one guy who is great a coding and one guy who’s worked with game design in the past who became our lead designer, so it was a good mix.
How did you manage disagreements within the team?
I very quickly asked an independent third party to act as a mediator in case something were to come up. So whenever there was an issue this person could come in and talk it through with the people involved, and that way we avoided direct confrontations. It worked really well to settle things quickly and without people getting hurt.
What was it like receiving a request from a company for a made-to-order game like this?
Since this was the first time that Lawyer.se has made a game, that always presents certain challenges. You have to work with the client to figure out more exactly what they’re looking for. We also created a few different options of certain parts of the game, so that we could quickly pivot and go with the one that was most appealing to the client.
What happens next?
Now all students in the class have joined forces and are working together to deliver a finished game.
