110217 30 Weeks To Go
We had a very productive meeting last night with Dwight, Erik, Melissa, Sean, Trisha, Wei-Hwa and Allen.
30 WEEKS TO GO
We have approximately 30 weeks till our target date. Assuming we want a month between playtest and full game, then we have just 26 weeks.
That means that we need to churn out approximately one "major"/plot-critical puzzle every other week and one minor/non-plot-critical puzzle a week. Of course, our production won't be uniform like that, but at least this perspective gives us an idea of the scope of the challenge before us.
GC PERSONNEL RECRUITING
There was general agreement that we could use one or two more people on board who have the time & interest to make putting on a full-length Game one of their top hobbies for the next 30 weeks. (Yes, we need other folks, too.)
The presentation at GC Summit did not, unfortunately, generate those kinds of leads. So it was agreed to post again on the BayBang Yahoo! Group.
Dwight will chat with an acquaintance he knows who might be a great technical director. The only problem is that he lives in Sacramento and might want to get paid. Several in our group are wary of offering payment.
Sean agreed to spearhead the technical director recruiting efforts.
Those who go to the upcoming Equinox party are encouraged to recruit there.
To make sure that potential recruits are dealt with promptly and don't fall through the cracks, we'll make doctorwhengame@gmail.com forward to Allen (who will have primary responsibility), and also to Sean and Wei-Hwa as backup.
WEEKLY MEETINGS
We agreed to start meeting weekly instead of biweekly.
PUZZLE SPECIFICATIONS
We want to make it easy for all our puzzle authors to contribute, especially those who cannot attend meetings. So we need to develop an effective way to communicate to authors what specifications of what we're looking for. This will make it easier for them to say yes to our requests.
Allen took a first stab at this on the "Inventory" page of the wiki. Wei-Hwa will reorganize the wiki, etc. to improve. We'll discuss again at the next meeting with the puzzle authors weighing in on whether the new format for requirements would communicate enough for them to commit to tasks and work efficiently.
We agreed that while we will to do our best to avoid changing specifications on authors (such as solution words), it will undoubtedly happen a few times. Wei-Hwa mentioned that he often enjoys doing such reworking. So he may be able to step in if specs change and the author is unenthused about going through the whole thing again.
DESIRED PUZZLE CHARACTERISTICS
There was general agreement that we want to encourage the teams to stay in character as much as possible. We may even have them pick an archetypal role from the moment they sign up, such as rival scientist, journalist, government agent, investor, other. (We might also ask them what their group's "claim to fame" is--a little creative writing task for them.) Since we'll have that information ahead of time, we might be able to tweak some of the puzzles or flavor text to play into their characters.
There was some discussion of whether we should encourage the teams to choose roles based on their real world puzzle solving skill (e.g., fast teams would be scientists, slower teams would be journalists). Then we could make scientist-specific non-plot-critical puzzles harder and journalist-specific non-plot-critical puzzles easier. Allen was worried about this one.
We acknowledged that the players are not the true protagonists of our plotline, which is unfortunate. But Erik suggested that we might give the teams subgoals to achieve during the Game, to allow them to come closer to being protagonists.
Some of these subgoals might be shared across team role (scientist, journalist, etc.) or run at cross purposes. Some goals might require the collaboration with a team of a different type.
We also brainstormed about puzzles/activities that require the collaboration of two (or more) teams. In fact, we even brainstormed an idea for a puzzle where only one team knows it's playing with another team--the other team thinks they're interacting with a computer. (This was our example of "It's funny to both GC *and* a team. Sort of seeing if a team could pass the Turing test.)
We also thought about what characteristics do we most desire for the massive number of non-plot-critical puzzles. There was general agreement that top of the list we want all puzzles to be organic/in-character. That is to say, we can make the puzzle somehow fit into the milieu and plot arc. Secondarily, it would be nice if many of the puzzles related to our theme (time, mad science, high school, etc.)
We also reiterated that for our non-plot critical puzzles
- don't have to solve to a phrase
- can be activities
- not all have to have a canonical solution
- some can be creative challenges (such as the science fair experiment they submit with their application)
- some can be optimization challenges ("How many X can you get in Y?")
We once again pondered how to handle the fact that some teams will be much faster than others. Sure we can have optional puzzles, but then some teams may feel cheated, like they didn't get to see all of the puzzles.
There was general agreement that we're going to need a mix of solutions. There was general agreement that we're going to have to have at least some optional puzzles. But perhaps we can take the sting out of this by offering the skipped puzzles to interested teams to take home.
We can also use the dynamic difficulty adjustment for some of the puzzles. We can also require more successes on certain activities from the faster teams. There was some agreement that a bit of enforced inactivity ("game resumes in 1 hour--go get dinner") would be OK. But we'll have to set the players' expectations about this.
LOCATION SCOUTING
It was agreed to nail down the locations for the plot-critical puzzles first, and then we'll scout for the non-plot-critical puzzles. Everyone will review the candidate locations identified to date on the wiki and then we'll discuss next week.
Dwight mentioned three sites he saw on the Peninsula:
1) The Old Clock Tower music shop in San Carlos 2) The big clock on El Camino in Redwood City 3) The clock repair shop in Redwood City 4) The Diddams toy store in San Carlos http://www.diddams.com/
Allen spotted an interesting art gallery warehouse space in San Francisco and he'll investigate.
Erik reported that the rec center is asking for $1,000 deposit. They've been a bit vague about the refund conditions, so Erik will hammer that out with them first.
SCRIPT
Trisha is still editing the script and we'll do a read through next session.
NEXT STEPS
- Allen will draft a recruiting pitch to post on BayBang. He'll first circulate it to our Group for edits.
- Wei-Hwa will get administrator rights to our Google Group from Allen
- Wei-Hwa will redirect doctorwhengame@gmail.com to Allen, Sean, and himself
- Wei-Hwa will reorganize the wiki with an eye to making it better for communicating requirements to puzzle authors
- Dwight will get some input from Wei-Hwa on a crossword puzzle puzzle idea of his
- Dwight will talk up our Game to his theatrical friend
- Sean will think up ideas on how to recruit a technical director, and start implementing if he can
- Trisha will edit the script
- Erik will find out the precise refund conditions for the deposit on the rec center.
- We'll playtest the current incarnation of the choose your own adventure puzzle in two weeks
- Everyone to review the candidate locations already described on the wiki
