Session 01: Goals and Objectives
Hello there. Welcome to this design session. These informal notes are dedicated to working out the mechanics for movement in CQ StoryHammer Games.
Today’s session is dedicated to planning out the goals and objectives of this project. Doing this helps to ensure there is a clear direction for the project, along with boundaries that will help prevent scope-creep.
I’m going to take a stab at the goal now:
Goal: By the end of this project, I will have a set of instructions that explains to players how moving through zones works.
That should be a good for now. It might change as I discover more about the project, but that’s a good launch point.
Goals written out like this explain what we are working towards but they are still fairly vague. This goal provided us with a deliverable (set of instructions) and with a purpose for the deliverable (explain to players how moving through zones works). But we could use some more boundaries and guidelines for what this thing is supposed to look like. Enter “objectives”.
For these types of projects, I can get a little “presentation-happy” and will go to lengths to present something fancy. I want to (try to) reign that in a bit so as a first objective, I will decree the following:
Objective 1: The format is digital, using the same platform that this objective was written within.
In addition, there won’t be a need for any professional illustrations for this project, but like other game instructions, a need may arise for an example image or two so I don’t want to outright ban imagery. I could forgo the objective, instead making this a guideline but I think there is an objective way to measure this: “each visual element incorporated in the instructions is necessary for teaching the rules.” Something like that. It can be cleaned up later.
Objective 2: Each visual element incorporated in the rules is necessary for teaching the rules.
These instructions should only teach movement mechanics – not how to play the game, not how to set up rooms, not how to resolve actions, etc. I’ll jot that down:
Objective 3: This set of instructions will only teach movement mechanics (and assume any other rules not directly tied to movement will be explained elsewhere.
Okay. So I know about the format and content information. What else am I missing? Oh. Right. Cryptiquest has three values that I will incorporate. I write about these in great detail elsewhere but for today’s purposes, I’ll just plop the objectives down here and move on:
Objective 4: Ensure the instructions are not confusing.
Objective 5: Ensure the instructions don’t contain “off switches”.
Objective 6: Ensure the instructions contain original content which remains the property of Cryptiquest, LLC.
Alright. I think that rounds out what I need in order to move forward. It’s possible that other boundaries will become known as I move forward but here’s what we’ve got.
Goal: By the end of this project, I will have a set of instructions that explains to players how moving through zones works.
Objective 1: The format is digital, using the same platform that this objective was written within.
Objective 2: Each visual element incorporated in the rules is necessary for teaching the rules.
Objective 3: This set of instructions will only teach movement mechanics (and assume any other rules not directly tied to movement will be explained elsewhere.
Objective 4: Ensure the instructions are not confusing.
Objective 5: Ensure the instructions don’t contain “off switches”.
Objective 6: Ensure the instructions contain original content which remains the property of Cryptiquest, LLC.
During the next session, I’ll address the tools needed to measure whether this project is successful or not.