Looking ahead: Things to do.

With 24 hours under my belt, it is time to look through my past quarter of theory building and research to come up with a game plan for the next three months.

So far I have already established a lengthy set of boundaries and rules to ground my game theory and "universe" so to speak, and it has provided me a strong foundation to jump out towards the abyss.

Here are the 5 core rules I laid out:

• Quick to Play: Being an iPhone centered concept, I wanted things to play out quickly. 5-10 minute play sessions are the "sweet spot" for the platform, and as such I don't want anything that become to cumbersome and time consuming.
• Social interaction: The iPhone is that, a PHONE, you have to have interaction. I felt that a multiplayer or some way to interact and communicate with friends and foes is a key feature to keep track of on such an inherently social platform.
• Follow the Rhetoric: I must stick to the rhetoric I created for my game theory. This in itself deserves a subsequent entry to its own.
• Innovation: The game needs to do something new or different. It needs a "hook", or who will take the chance to spend time playing the game?
• Fun: The game just has to be fun, that is the MOST important thing, and if you fail here, the entire project has failed.

I did this for the simple reason that I didn't wish to lose focus of my end goals. With my production crew consisting of "me, myself, and I", I really need to keep a laser rocket focus to be able to keep things moving along at a brisk pace.

Through CHID 491 in Autumn Quarter, I was able to do all the needed research and theory crafting so that I would be able to dive into the production side of the project. Unfortunately, this means I now need a check list for milestones to reach over the next 77 days.

My goal is to hopefully hit AT LEAST one milestone per week, allowing for some margin of error in terms of scope for a given goal.

Important milestones:

• Nail down final feature spec
• Create Government relationship matrix
• Create Ethnicity matrix
• Develop card system and resulting tech trees (civil, science, military)
• Develop language relations
• Scripting of text for immediate localization into French, Spanish, and German
• Develop war simulation and military control
• Invent Morale System (creation of city "sway", riot thresholds, and revolution points)
• Flesh out Logistics
• Creation of full world map
• Create final art direction
• UI development/proof of concept
• Card art
• Additional art assets
• UX reviews
• RAD prototyping