Week 5 -- Planning

This week was a bit slower. I took a bit of a breather after working hard to get the design document out the door. I spent my time listing out all of the tasks I need to get done -- and boy is there a lot to do -- and estimating how much time each would take.

From there I drew up my schedule. So here's my plan: About 2 weeks prototyping key features of the battle system to see if they'll be fun and workable. From then through the end of September, implement the basic battle system, dialogue display, and navigation between areas, and come up with (rough) content for the introductory sequence of the game. This will give me a rough draft of the "first five minutes" of the game, a concept of Jay Barnson's that I think will be useful for focusing my early work.

October through mid-November: System for improving character powers (raise attributes, learn abilities), ally characters, various other things, and content (areas and enemies) for the first major exploring-type area.

My schedule may slip from tasks taking longer than planned and/or me having less time than planned. If my schedule slips more than a couple of weeks, I'll have to revise my plan and think about making some cuts. The ultimate contingency plan is to scale back the contest release to be a demo rather than the full game. Instead of trying to dash off content for the entire plot, I can cut it back to only the first "chapter," or first couple of areas, or whatever I can do well in the time I have.

After my mid-November goal, I have about 3 months to add more features and content. I want to wrap up major additions by mid-February and get the game semi-stabilized for the start of alpha testing on March 1.

Yikes. Well, here I go!