Making it even Smaller

I'm splitting weirding wood's releases into milestones. Literally.

I've been working furiously to get all the bits and pieces done for the first release and through testing a lot of good feedback has come back, but a lot of it leads me to realize the content past wave 7 was lacking.

Because I'm determined to get this game out very shortly my only realistic option is to cut the content to make the game 10 waves. I learned a variation of this at Vancouver Film School:

It's the cost quality time triangle. The difference is this one has scope where quality usually is. The idea is pretty self explanatory:

With X amount of time, Y amount of cost, and Z amount of scope you can make product with a certain amount of quality. If you are running out of one you have to make changes with the others. Eg. you are running out of time, inserting more cost or less scope (or less quality) you can still make the same product.

So here's the important part. When you have something that HAS to be smaller. It's only difference is based on expectation. If you are making a massive multiplayer game and it can only be 10 minutes long, it will be considered a flop, because the expectation is for something that spans hours and days. If you are making a tic tac toe game however it would be just fine. Perhaps even too long.

So the question becomes: "How can you make this into something that is still respectable for the resources you have?

How I'm using this

I need to cut my game in two, it's already short, and my "ideal version" still needs a great number of basic systems that have to be implemented. This game was originally supposed to represent a "journey" through a rather unsafe wood. So I'm cutting that journey into it's own milestones. Making my first release:



Each leg of the journey will consist of 10 waves. And each time I'll be upgrading the system. So playing the 2nd Mile will include features and new gameplay that wasn't seen in the previous installment, and so on. This should allow me to build the feature set enough to make the final journey through weirding wood the quality level I'm looking for, while keeping each installment interesting.

On the business side, I have to get some numbers in very soon. So it fits all requirements.

More testing to go, release is soon. I think I'm more eager than anyone else.