Documentation Milestones and the Development Schedule

 

Below is a list of the typical milestones in a schedule and where the documents described in this series serve as deliverable

items. Following each milestone would be a review of that milestone, which would require approval to go on to the next.

 

Conceptual Phase

 

Design Phase

 

Production Phase

 

There will be more specific milestones than the above list. The Game Producer/PM will draw these up after the Functional Spec.

 

Dealing with Change

Don’t make any changes to the game without it going through the documentation. A change to the functional specification

potentially invalidates the technical specification and subsequent schedule. All major changes require a reassessing

of the schedule and have to be approved by the Development Manager.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jan

 

 

 

Feb

 

 

 

Mar

 

 

 

wk

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Production

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concept doc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Concept art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Production

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Procuction docs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Programming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art production

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alpha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Master

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

outstanding task

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

completed task

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above is an extremely simplified version of a game production plan.

 

 

 

 

Actual plan would have series of sub-task, with a task owner and completion date.