milestones - Poobslag/turbofat GitHub Wiki

Development milestones

These milestones represent big pieces I'd like to implement so this starts feeling more and more like a complete game. This doesn't include other improvements like animations, sound effects, music, joystick support, performance and framework upgrades. These other improvements can be done at any point during development so they're not a part of the road map. But, they're also very important, and we'll handle them gradually with an attempt to front-load the ones which pose the greatest risk.

Later milestones represent steps necessary to truly call the game "complete" and get to where we can distribute or sell it.

✅ (v0.04) Block Dropping Vertical Slice, Apr 2020: Vertical slice of the block-dropping portion of the game. Players can move/rotate pieces, clear lines, form boxes and score points. Players can experience and understand the mechanics of the game, and get a glimpse of the style we're going for.

✅ (v0.06) Overworld Vertical Slice, Apr-Jun 2020: Vertical slice of the overworld portion of the game. Players can walk around in an overworld environment and talk to people. Players can launch 3 different scenarios by talking to different customers and answering a "yes/no" type prompt. Completing scenarios earns money. Players can experience and understand the overall progression of the game.

✅ (v0.07) Pre-porting to different platforms, Jun-Jul 2020: Experimenting with HTML5 has altered my plans for the game. HTML5 support is 90% there but requires a different design, specifically it requires replacing the 3D overworld with something else. We should also test the game on mobile platforms to see if there are any other similar hurdles which will require a radical design change.

✅ (v0.09) Feature-complete characters, community development, Jul-Sep 2020: Addition of remaining key aspects of characters: Multicolored characters, improved shadows, additional facial features, multiple tiers of dialog (chapter dialog, character dialog, filler).Creation of a character editor and Discord server to encourage community involvement.

✅ (v0.11) Feature complete scenarios and HTML5 pre-alpha, Sep-Nov 2020: Player can choose from a series of levels featuring unique intro/outro dialog, cutscenes, and gameplay mechanics. Players can now experience most of the different parts which will be in the final game. This includes the first implementation of a progression gate: earn enough money and unlock new levels with different, harder customers. An HTML5 pre-alpha (on itch.io, newgrounds) shows off all of this functionality, including a way to jump into the gameplay quickly (practice mode?). Development of other communities depending on v0.09's reception (Website? Mailing list? Subreddit? Facebook?)

✅ (v0.21) World building, Nov-Jan 2021: Further flesh out the overworld and environment. Player can enter/exit a building, and the overworld/indoor areas look similar to what they might look like in the final game, with polished sprites and environmental assets.

✅ (v0.23) Cutscene Framework, Jan-Mar 2021: Initial framework for cutscenes. New scripting logic, creature behavior and visual cues necessary to facilitate storytelling.

✅ (v0.24) Performance Improvements, Mar-Apr 2021: Performance improvements. The game should be playable at a good frame rate on mobile devices and desktop PCs. The game should be able to handle anywhere from 5-50 creatures at once. It should be able to handle large sprawling worlds with tons of creatures, scenery and terrain.

✅ (v0.28) First progression gate, Apr-Aug 2021: First draft of a completed progression gate, complete with an overworld, environment, cutscenes, characters and story. This also includes about 8 fully fleshed-out characters, with different personality archetypes and vocal quirks.

✅ (v0.30) Solidify gameplay and levels, Aug-Oct 2021: Improve core gameplay loop. Make it easier to find where to go, who to talk to. Add a chapter intro/outro, and dress up the results screen. Generate more level ideas and fill out the first progression gate with more interesting levels.

✅ (v0.42) Performance, Story Mode Redesign, Oct-Feb 2022: Improve performance (again) to where everyone can run the game on browsers or on their phone. Redesign story mode to be more 'puzzle centric'.

✅ (v0.51) Solidify new-player experience, Feb-Nov 2022: Design the first 30 minutes of the game: additional tutorials, first progression gate, dialog, story. This could be looked at as a demo. This would be a good time to show off the game to people who haven't played before to see if the tutorial stands on its own.

(v0.74) First Alpha, Nov-Apr 2024: Finish the remaining "main line" progression gates: opening a restaurant, hiring staff, opening additional restaurants, becoming the ultimate chef. Add a 'tower of trials' where experienced players can climb in rank. Main game should be feature complete from tutorial to credits.

(v0.87) First Beta, Apr-Jul 2024: Implement alternate "expert" progression gates, and very hard levels. Add features for skipping the starting levels, skipping dialog, making the game more appealing for people who've played it before or mastered it. Post-game should be complete from tutorial to alternate ending, through both paths (the newgame+ path and the elite player path).

(v0.89) Publishing, Hype, Jul-Oct 2024: Porting to different platforms, app stores. Achievements, pricing, licensing. Bugfixes, refactoring, performance improvements, polish, improved assets, improved dialog, additional music. Developing gameplay trailers, building buzz. Building/interacting with community, adding requested 'nice to have' features.

(v1.00) 1.0, Oct-Feb 2025: Additional bugfixes, refactoring, performance improvements, polish, improved assets, improved dialog, additional music. Building/interacting with community, adding requested 'nice to have' features.

Community milestones

A community can't develop around a game that doesn't exist, so the first priority is getting the game to a playable state. But once that's established, we need to be proactive about getting people interested in the game.

Feature-complete characters

After the character framework is complete, and characters can have meaningful conversations and personalities with varied appearances, we can start trying to form a community of people who want to make their mark in the game world.

  1. Open up Subreddit
  2. Open up Discord
  3. Post message to fan communities, 'An open-source game needs an open-source universe, so I've released an editor where you can design and write your own monsters. They'll go in my game Turbo Fat when it gets released. Send me your cool creations!' (Discord, Twitter)
    • (Link to the discord)
  4. If the editor is too limiting, let me know what you wanted to make. Maybe I can add it! And if you want to show off your creations, join the Turbo Fat subreddit or the Turbo Fat discord! (Discord, Twitter)

You probably be cautious about sharing this message with the general gaming public, because 1: your game won't be ready for casual play yet and 2: to skeptics it looks like you're trying to get other people to make your game for you. (Which you kind of are.) You don't want to poison the well.

HTML5 pre-alpha

After the HTML5 pre-alpha is in place (itch.io, newgrounds, elsewhere), we can start soliciting feedback from the Tetris, Puyo, and PPL communities -- people who are passionate about puzzle games mechanically. We shouldn't start soliciting feedback from the general public yet as the game will still be in a state where it's not fun for casual play.

  1. Post message to Tetris subreddits, 'I'm making a free open-source puzzle game, Turbo Fat! Here's a link to it. It isn't Tetris but I need Tetris pros to tell me if the game is too easy, too hard, or just not fun.'
  2. Share game with Twitch Tetris streamers you're close to
  3. Share game on Twitter, #tetris #gamedev #turbofat.

Be very up-front, the full game will be free and open-source, and the full game will be for sale on Steam.

Steam

It costs $100 to set up a steam page; you should do this early. (Ideally November 2022, after you've designed the first 30 minutes of the game)

Get steam keys, so that you can give them out to your community.

You will be giving away the game on other platforms and selling it on steam. Ideally, people on Steam will get other benefits -- achievements, trading cards, and maybe something where like, other platforms have 'v0.9' but steam gets 'v1.0' or something.

Porting to app stores

A few months prior to 1.0, we'll port the game to various app stores (Apple store, Play store, Steam) to solicit feedback and fix any portability bugs.

Trailers

We'll hire some people on fiverr (or somewhere) to edit together some game trailers for us. Maybe a few different ones

  • An apologetic trailer where we talk about how mechanically, the game is just a mess
  • A cool trailer where we talk about how mechanically, the game is very unique
  • Both trailers will emphasize that the game is free, open source, made with Godot

Twitch

We'll hire some streamers on Twitch to try out our game on stream and provide feedback. This will be very difficult for me to watch. I hope I don't watch it. But, I probably should.

We can hire streamers ourselves or reach out to a PR firm.

Other stuff to build a community

Giving back to Godot