Now that coding is properly back underway, it’s time to layout some development milestones. It’s a big project and there’s a long way to go. This post will contain small spoilers, which will not be hidden with spoiler tags.
Phase I: The Black Box
Milestone 0: The Engine (Done)
This milestone was considered finished with the completion of the ECS, NLP, and Core module. The majority of development after this point consists of creating Modules, Components, Verbs, and Entities.
Milestone 1: The Forest (Done)
Laying out the starting area of the game with some basic gameplay (movement, NPC interaction, containers, etc) as a proof of concept.
Milestone 2: The People
Adding interactive NPCs in the starting region, complete with dialogue trees, awareness of the player and of each other.
Milestone 3: The Quest
Giving the player objectives, measuring their progress, and offering a gameplay path to the first act of the game.
Milestone 4: The End
This one might sound out of order, but immediately after the prologue I’m going to write and construct the ending of the game. At the end of this milestone, the game will be in a fully playable state with beginning and end, choices to make, and challenges to overcome. The rest is content, content, content.
Retrospective I
After completing milestone 4, I’m going to pause briefly and consider the rest of the game’s structure. This is effectively a second design phase to make sure I’m on the right track and that the plot/quest/world/style are working well.
Phase II: StupidRPG
Milestone 5: Act I
Content milestone. Two regions, one NPC, and a couple challenges.
Milestone 5: Act II
Content milestone. Two regions, several NPCs, and many challenges.
Milestone 5: Act III
Content milestone. Two or three regions, including a larger one. Many NPCs, many challenges, more social interactions. Leads into the endgame segment from Milestone 4.
Retrospective II
The second retrospective will assess the game as a whole, looking at:
- Content that should be cut (sometimes less is more)
- Areas where content needs added
- Areas where the content doesn’t work
- Fun factor
Milestone 6: Release Candidate
At this point the game should be feature-complete and content-complete, with all the changes from Retrospective II implemented. Top priorities are bug fixes, editing, and balancing.
Milestone 7: Release
The game is done(ish)!