And the first Quarter of 2018 has come and gone. Time to look back at the Q1 roadmap and take stock, to see which goals I reached and which ones I missed.

JAN 1 & 2

The first month went pretty well. I managed to hit all goals on both updates, even going so far to over deliver by pulling the Difficulty selection from the end of March and adding it to the second January update.

Why?

January was a pretty empty month. There was some contract work and the Global Game Jam but no big chunks of time were missing. That helped me reach those goals.

I think the content was appropriately scoped and I managed to concentrate on the goals I've set myself.

FEB 1

With February rolling around things got a bit off track.

For the first update I wanted to add a new class and add some new Crypt Knowledge events. Both these things didn't happen, instead I added a lot of new followers. I've also managed to add the new Barrier keyword.

Why? 

I was looking at the lack of options in recruiting and the lack of variety in the enemies so I felt the game needed more units. And that got me off track.

I still think it was the right decision since it was what allowed me to eventually redesign the recruiting mechanic in FEB2. And it being such an important source for followers, now works a lot better. 

FEB 2

The second update was originally planned to feature yet another new convoy and the final map. Again two things that did not happen. 

Instead I finally managed to put in the events that were meant to be in the FEB1 update, and then I changed the levelling, learning and recruiting mechanics.

Why?
 
For the second update I looked at the final map and noticed that the events that were in place there would need serious rework, since they've been pretty old. This meant that there was no unlock condition for the planned Convoy so I couldn't add that either. Instead I stuck with the recruiting and improved that.

MAR 1

Again a lot of missed goals here. The original plan was to add events, equipment and another Convoy. Instead I added enemies, equipment and new leader cards but no new convoy.

Why? 

Without events there was no way to unlock the new convoy so I did not add it to the game either. It's also around this time that I really noticed that the game was lacking a more solid progression mechanic. 

MAR 2

The second update should feature some more events and the difficulty mode. However since I had already finished the difficulty mode in January I could concentrate on an improved New Game Screen to lay the groundwork for an improved meta game. But again no new events were added.

Why?

I had decided that the meta game was more important than some more events and wanted to redo that screen to make it more transparent to players that there are things to unlock.

WHAT TO LEARN

The key reasons for not reaching the set goals are:

1. Deciding that the game needs more followers and neglecting creating new events 
2. Underestimating the work needed in preparing for the final map
3. Focusing on the redone Convoy/Class system at the cost of new events

I still think a quarterly roadmap is a good idea, but it probably makes sense to revisit it at the end of each month to update it to reflect a new plan. In hindsight I feel like I started improvising a bit more than I'd like to, and I wasn't as transparent with development as I wanted to either. In essence, starting in February, the plan became less and less relevant.

Let's make this better for the upcoming quarter. And the roadmap for that will come soon!