Mind Maps

I've been spending a lot of time making mind maps of the different aspects of the game that require development. It's a humbling experience when you see what you've built and what is required to be built.

With the direction in hand, now I'm able to focus attention on the areas of the game required to make it playable. While a huge emphasis has been put into the development of space travel, it's actually one of the least used systems when playing the game. So for the next couple months I will focus on the travel, financial, trade and crafting aspects of the game.

I guess I had this total epiphany when I realized that space exploration was useless without a reason to leave a planet outside the public transportation systems available.

 

mind map for programming tasks:

 

 

 

Too small to read, for some good reasons, the map above represents the core game engine in the center black box. From that are each of the main functional areas:

• Travel
• Skills
• Inventory
• Player structures
• Quest engine
• Crafting engine
• Financial systems
• User interfaces
• Combat

At this point about 15% of the boxes are completed which has created an almost playable game. So for now I can zip around the galaxies, plot waypoint, gather information about planets and fly a somewhat reliable space ship. In showing part of the game the other night my ship exploded, with warning. I forgot that my engines were heating up...