Capstone Timeline

I really had a hard time coming up with a way to visualize my timeline.  I think it’s been one of the more challenging aspects of putting the capstone proposal together.  I doubt that I was the only one, but dual wielding jobs and going to school full time, I barely know what’s happening at the end of the week much less an entire year from then.  I had a good talk with Travis Faas and a few others and they helped me work out a my schedule.

  I can’t stress enough to talk to people who have seen and been through this process before.  They can help you put together a good timeline because they know what’s in store for you!

For my particular project, I wanted to create a game with .xna.  So Travis broke it down for me.  Right now, I have ‘til Dec to actually start my capstone, so for these coming months I needed to prepare.  I needed to gather art and supplies to create my characters and background to use for my game.  I also needed to learn .xna (and C#)  SO my goals became two fold.  1) Finish up all the concept art and flesh our and animate a character, one thug and a background.  2) All the while I will be working on a moonshooter for .xna.  I plan to complete all of this by Dec.  If I can figure that out, I have the basics to build upon to start creating the program for my fighting game.  Also, with my art done by Dec, I have a starting place, with one fully fleshed out and animated character, one thug, some background that right there is the basics for a game.  So come January, I’m will already be in a great spot to begin putting it all together before April 27^th. 

But before I’m done with that, I have a few other bench marks to hit during my capstone semester.  The main ones are getting the initial one player game, and the hit boxes running smoothly.  The next will be things like getting a person to help me with Music and SFX that have been considered.  I already have so much to do I’ll need the extra hands.  And If I can’t get help, I have some buffer time, and I can just skip some of the bells and whistle that I really wanted, but aren’t necessary for my game.  Like a minigame for example.

 I also have to consider marketing and budget. Like how can I go about creating things like business cards and swag to quite frankly, bribe people to come by and check out my game on my next to nil budget.  I do have a few ideas on to go about doing that … but I actually carved out some time specifically for researching some of these ideas, and time it would take to implement then.  For example, my old high school has a vocational print shop more than capable to print out some business cards, but it will take them quite a few weeks to complete.  But they work cheap and effectively.  I need time to investigate factors like these before I can make a decision.  And although it’s not required for a capstone, being prepared and ordering these in Febuaray as opposed to April 26^th sounds like a smarter way to go.  (And why I made it a bench mark during my capstone semester.)

The idea of a Buffer zone is an important and overlooked aspect.  For me personally, I carved out two weeks because I know what a shitstorm my life can be at times, and I doubt that everything will go as smoothly as I have carved out in the time line.  So these buffer weeks won’t be for vacation, there designed to make up lost ground.  Whether it’s in other classes, or if I end up having to move in the middle of this semester, (That’s another blog, but it almost happened) A week or two scattered throughout the capstone semester can only help me.  Any more than that will be detrimental, because I can’t have two weeks without working on this in some way, and any less won’t give me breathing room if something apocalyptic happens.

10-9-12 UPDATE:

Speaking of life happening, I just heard that .xna may not be supported for Windows 8.  There will be an xbox live, but the .xna pipeline may be cut short.  From what I can tell, I see that Microsoft is adopting C++ because of DirectX11.  This may change in the future, but there will be no Windows phone support.  I’m still looking into this.  If anyone has any info, please comment or share. 

Thank You,

 Billy

Link to Article:
http://forums.wpcentral.com/developers/180590.htm

UPDATE
I am currently looking into solutions re .xna Windows 8.  It still looks that x-box live and games created with windows 7 will work.  But I suddenly feel as if it's a dinosaur.  I am currently looking into Unity and the ....eep... price tag.  Also re-editing my budget and talking with my mentor and others to see if Unity is a plausible fit.