Freeplay 2012 - Planning and Scheduling

NOTES FROM FREEPLAY 2012 19 - 23 SEPTEMBER 2012

Disclaimer:

The Freeplay Independent Games Festival 2012 could not have happened without the hard work of all its organisers, sponsors and volunteers, they deserve many thanks. All work and words are copyrighted their respective owners and effort has been made to accurately record every speaker and the content presented. These notes are not from any official channel associated with Freeplay and are for the purposes of providing information.

All notes are available in full via: Dropbox (PDF Download). The PDF will be updated in the next few weeks so check back if you need updates.

PLANNING AND SCHEDULING
Joe Tabor, Director and owner of Fiasco Studios

Scope
- Target Platform

- Type of game (genre)

- Time vs. Quality

- Project goals
                - E.g.  Tech demo, experimental game development, art test
                - Defines success of game project

- Budget
                - E.g.  Time, money and goodwill

- Design?

Preproduction
                - Low budget way of mapping and testing project

Testing
                - Requires time and money from project budget

Post launch support
                - App store updates, forum support

Marketing

Overheads
                - Hardware and software costs

                - Rent, bills, administration and legal fees
                - E.g.  Have you got money to replace items should they catch on fire

Producer = project manager

Experience needed to work out time needed

Team meetings

- Discuss scope and tasks with team as they know how much time and what tasks are required

- Tasks needed to be written down and given amount of time to complete

- Need to have minimum amount of time per task

                - E.g.  1 day - 1/2 week needed to complete task

- Work out all dependencies

                - E.g.  Animation requires models

- Plot tasks on timeline per role

- Include holiday and sick leave

- Include milestones

How to Cost the Project

Salaries vs. Cost

Salary
An full timer may earn   $36.70 p/h x 37.5 hrs = $1376.25

Add Super                           $1500 per week = approx $78000 per year

Cost

- Hardware and software costs

- Overheard, office space, Internet access electricity

- Producer costs (running costs)

- Administration costs

Roughly calculated as $2000 per person per week

Scoping without Design

- Challenging

- Over estimating is better than under estimating

Contingency
                - Bump up as much as possible

                - Need to have money to save for when things go wrong
                - Delay in project start

                - Plan for future projects

                - Aim to get consistent work for company and staff

Profit?

                - If you need to make money from games, keep making games

                - Add 20% of cost to calculate project

Crowdsource

- Clear goals to explain how money will be used

- Rewards are valuable to givers

                E.g.  $20000 = 10 weeks worth of work

- Explain what happens in those 10 weeks

- Features gets cut if unnecessary and not essential to gameplay and based on the time and money it costs to implement