Project Specification, Schedule, Milestones, and Member Assignments
Due Monday, April 6, at 6pm
The first stage of the quarter is to specify your project, define
a schedule and a set of milestones, and assign members to the various
components of your project.
Your specification should cover the following topics:
- Project Description
- What kind of game are you planning to build?
- What are the goals of the game, how do players win, how do they lose?
- What are the interesting or unique aspects to your game?
- What are the list of features of your game? Prioritize them
into at least three categories: "Must Have", "Would Be Really Nice",
and "Cool But Only If Ahead Of Schedule".
- Group Management
- What are the major roles in your group's management?
- How will decisions be made? By leader, consensus?
- How will you communicate and collaborate online?
- How will you know when you're off schedule, and how will you
deal with schedule slips?
- Who will produce the weekly group status reports?
- Project Development
- What are the development roles and who will handle them?
- What tools will you use?
- How will you do testing?
- How will you do documentation (both internal group documentation
as well as external player documentation)?
- Project Schedule
- Define a set of milestones with a specific definition of what
each milestone is, what it means to complete each milestone, and when
you expect to complete them. Define the milestones at two scales, a
high level set of key milestones like integration and design freeze,
and a low level set of weekly milestones.
The goal is to make a plan at the outset, but nothing is set in
stone. Many things you plan now will be changed as reality imposes
itself, but the more seriously you take the planning now the more
productive you'll be at getting it done. Do not think of this
as just another course makework assignment. This is something that
you should feel in your soul is an integral part of building your
system. It is your blueprint for a successful project for the
quarter.
Please post the information on your group Web page and send us
mail when it is available.
For examples to help make the tasks in the initial assignment
more concrete, some relatively recent specs are:
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to post to piazza or send mail.