110512 Recruiting, Bite-Size Tasks, Locations, Routing

From DoctorWhen

18 Weeks to go!


PUZZLES

Sean reported limited progress on the puzzles.

  • Sean will draft a basic form that puzzle authors can use to document hints for their creations.


RECRUITING & DATE OF GAME

Allen reported limited progress on recruiting.

  • One graphic artist has agreed to take a crack at one of the logos, but has not signed up for all the game's needs.
  • He had a long interview with one videographer and will hear more from her shortly.
  • He has a phone interview scheduled with a gadgeteer for Tuesday
  • A mixed bag of actor leads
  • Three lukewarm set designer leads

Allen suggested that we should consider our draft game dates very tentative and revisit them once get all the functional areas staffed.


TASKS AND THEIR DUE DATES

Since we are having difficulty getting current or new team members to take responsibility for various functional areas (not that they have to do all the work themselves, just that that have to take responsibility for making sure someone does it), it was proposed that we instead break the functional areas into smaller components (both partial completion tasks and individual creations within each functional area) and have people sign up for those.

Allen expressed grave reservations that if we tackle tasks in a piecemeal fashion with no one taking ultimate responsibility for making sure the complete end products are done, then we will only asymptotically approach completion of these game components. What's more, he was concerned that if no one takes responsibility for completed tasks, then responsibility for all tasks will default to him.

It was agreed to start tackling tasks in this bite-sized fashion to at least start making progress until and unless we get people to take responsibility for entire functional areas:

  • Melissa will design the costumes.
  • If the first graphic designer does not produce satisfactory results on the Trenchwood logo, Erik will use 99Design to get logos made
  • Erik will contact schools near the rec center (and visit as appropriate) to secure the high school hallway and science fair locations.
  • Erik will draft location sequences from the set of candidate locations


EXTERNAL WEB SITE

We reviewed our objectives, functional requirements, and navigation tree for the Trenchwood web site. There was general agreement that although we want the site to look great, we don't need very much functionality or very many pages. Everyone is encouraged to visit the appropriate pages on the wiki and review/revise.

http://doctorwhen.com/kiwi/index.php/External_Web_Site_And_Application_Process

We agreed to include an "out of character" page with information for the applicants. We should review Snout's similar information. Again, everyone is invited to visit the appropriate page on the wiki and review/revise.

Allen proposed that if there are time & resources available, we should also create web sites for Peach Frontier Laboratories (Act II) and Ethereal Endways, Inc. (denouement). (We would need to find some in-character reason to encourage the characters to attempt to access these web sites--perhaps that's how they'll access the View-O-Scope.) Further, on game day during the transition from Act I to Act II we should take down Trenchwood Laboratories's web site ("URL not found, redirecting") and enable the Peach Frontier Laboratories's site.

We could also make a web site for our fake art gallery (and we have to come up with a funny name for the gallery).


LOCATIONS, ROUTING

Allen proposed that we spend some effort physically scouting some of our candidate locations to see if they inspire events/puzzles (a step many GCs go through during development). There was general agreement that we didn't need to do that for this game since it's so story driven.

We reviewed a route/timing planning spreadsheet that Justin kindly drafted, and identified some good candidate places to add stops during each act. We noted that some convenient places to insert extra stops come very early in Acts I & II. So on game day we may want to closely monitor how fast each team completes the very first puzzle and then give the fast teams optional events right away.

  • As mentioned above, Erik will will draft a route for each act.


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As always, respond with your comments, clarifications, corrections, amplifications, etc.

Allen

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