Design document?

[seronleithian]

Is there a document or something where the dev explains what all he wants in the game and when he will consider it "done"? IIRC I read on the wiki that he wasn't into putting out timetables because it is too stressful for the dev and upsets people in the community which makes sense but.. how do we know what he is actually aiming for and what to expect?

[TLHeart]

Is there a document or something where the dev explains what all he wants in the game and when he will consider it "done"? IIRC I read on the wiki that he wasn't into putting out timetables because it is too stressful for the dev and upsets people in the community which makes sense but.. how do we know what he is actually aiming for and what to expect?

nope, nothing, just his greenlight rambles, which are vague, so that he can call it finished when he wants to.. 

He already tried to call it done, at alpha 11, and release it on steam as version 1, but got a huge backlash, and changed his mind.

[seronleithian]

I asked because I thought I read something about him basically considering it finished at this point.. that would be extremely disappointing if so!

[REMworlder]

Only Tynan knows.

Actually I don't! Even Tynan doesn't know. If I knew I'd tell you.

As for how Tynan develops, he's pretty focused on implementation through iteration and less on specific planning. As builds get more complex and prone to bugginess, rapid iteration isn't as feasible. Add in that the private bug testing hasn't been great at keeping bugs out of release builds, constant updates frustrate modders trying to keep up with the latest builds, and Tynan is working with Ison from a distance, and it makes sense for design periods to increasingly increase.

I don't plan ahead in any traditional way. I organize myself with a priority queue of stuff to be done, which I am constantly shuffling and reshuffling to make sure that the stuff that really matters is at the top. Not planning allows me to make use of current knowledge instead of past knowledge when making decisions about what to do now. I consider this one of the most important parts of my methodology. RimWorld got made not because of mad programming or art skills, but because of smart task prioritization. I don't get sidetracked by irrelevancies or low-impact tasks because I'm always re-evaluating each task against tens or hundreds of others in the queue. I work really hard to avoid tunnel-visioning. Usually there's a more important task you just aren't thinking of.

Sometimes I may release builds (for testing) every day or two, sometimes they may be weeks apart. Needs change according to what you're doing. There is no consistent cycle that covers all situations, and the only reason to create one is to make a stable environment for multiple team members to work in (and even then this practice is over-emphasized IMO). Public releases will be spaced further apart but this is for the reason that GC13 cited, and so we can do a real testing cycle on them to make sure no killer bugs snuck in.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=348.msg4732#msg4732

As far as design goals go, check out the kickstarter modules. Tynan specifies this, "list of modules isn't a roadmap or a plan. These may not all ever be finished. They're options I'm offering to the community. Which way should we take the game after the Kickstarter?"

nope, nothing, just his greenlight rambles, which are vague, so that he can call it finished when he wants to.. 

He already tried to call it done, at alpha 11, and release it on steam as version 1, but got a huge backlash, and changed his mind.

I don't really think this is accurate at all... The entire topic is easily searchable on the forums, just *Tynan, so let's allow those posts to speak for themselves:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=14470.0