In Harmony Alpha Content Scope Documentation
Now that In Harmony is complete, I want to share some of our documentation that we used to plan and schedule the late production phase, which ended in us hitting Alpha with our full target of 10 levels and full voice acting in the game. Some of these thoughts may be rough around the edges, because they were made for internal use and presentation.
Below is our scope plan generated last July, as we entered Alpha phase.
Game Level Scope Layout (Credit: Richie Berry)
Alpha Content Scope Plan
How we have cut scope so far:
Game Area and Game Time: Largest cut in scope has been because of set dressing. Because of our issues procuring environmental assets, the process for determining the visual target and selecting on-style assets from packs was pushed back later in the process than originally desired. Once our visual target was selected, we got an estimate from our primary set dresser on how long set dressing would take, and we judged that our maximum possible set dressing budget was 10 rooms, of roughly equivalent size to the set dressing room. 1 per week from Carol, 1 per week from Pam and Ryan. That estimate of 10 was underestimated, as startup costs to the process were expected (7 weeks of time before Alpha). Jess is also expected to be leveraged as a resource later in the process if needed, doing first passes.
First half of the game: Keeping 11 of 13 action blocks, consolidating from 8 rooms to 5 rooms.
Second half of the game: Keeping 7 of 23 action blocks, consolidating from 10 rooms to 4 rooms
We cut from two boss battles to a single boss battle, to avoid set dressing cost of two arenas.
Keeping 2 named NPCs out of 3.
Mechanics: No mechanics have been cut so far.
How we plan to cut scope in the future:
May 29th:
If only one room is fully set dressed and completed by this date, Room 9 will be cut immediately.
June 12th: Hard deadline date. If goals are not met by this date, scope cutting measures go into effect.
Cutting Criteria:
Extrapolate the rate of set dressing based on completed rooms so far
Rate of Whiteboxing
Priority Order for Room Cutting: Room 9, Room 8, Room 2 (Hub), Room 1, Room 6, Room 4
Mechanics: If the game is cut down to 8 or fewer rooms at the June 12th deadline, tuning in will be cut as a mechanic, as it will no longer fit into the structure of the game.
Narrative: Cutting ancillary environmental NPCs if goal of full script not met.
Visual Representation of the Scope plan approaching Alpha
What was our target timeline approaching Alpha?
May 22nd
4 levels fully whiteboxed
Dialogue vertical slice recorded
May 29th
Presentation
7 levels fully functional
Full first pass of dialogue
June 5th
8 levels and Boss Arena fully functional
Kevin and Jess edited dialogue
High schoolers playtest
June 12th
9 Levels and boss arena fully functional
Full final dialogue script
All camera sequences existent in rough form (7 sequences in levels and death animations)
5 levels fully set dressed (3 Carol, 2 Pam/Ryan)
June 15th-19th
Full dialogue recording sessions
June 19th
All camera sequences fully polished
UCF main campus playtest
June 19th-26th
All playtesting conclusions documented and made into task list for programmers and designers
July 3rd ALPHA
10 Levels fully set dressed (5 Carol, 5 Pam/Ryan)
Future
Dialogue pickup sessions
Initial Rough Outline from Production meeting