Organizational

1. Formulate creative intent
2. It might be more efficient to leave than try to make it work
3. It’s not all content creation, secure the third of the time for polish
   1. Test the prototypes, release demos, and playtest with real players
   2. Make test scenes, develop testing tools
   3. Treat every bug as an opportunity to write a test (or a guard clause) to make the thing more secure
4. Reward the initiative with more creative freedom and responsibilities.
   1. Lack of experience or unrelated fields aren’t that big of a factor (but a professional need to review)
   2. Encourage creative conversation and discourse – but have a way to moderate it.
   3. Cross-field synergy is what we’re looking toward: story enhancing gameplay, gameplay resonating with the visuals, and visuals telling a story.

Narrative

1. Formalizing creative intent
   1. Walking away, when differences in creative tastes do not bridge after a few tries
2. Instead of audiobook worth of dialogues, go for narration plus environmental storytelling
   1. If we liked cool full VO version that much, we should've ordered an estimate what it would take to produce
3. Focus on explaining mechanics more
   1. in-game wiki
   2. continuous tutorial
   3. “basement”: area with challenges to test player’s knowledge
4. Revisions and polishing: there’s a lot of dangling threads, started for half-baked or not fully realized premises

Story

• Make unlocking spells a bigger part of the story (with ability to "gift" that power to others – and also prune the diluted drop pull)
• If the gameplay is about micromanaging the horde, plus dodging, plus bashing spells and sacrificing – then there should be a subplot about hectic micromanagement and how it is easy to let go of that (although, the damage dealt to the subordinates needs to be healed)
  • falling apart citadel and furthering some projects
• "Love letters” in the Citadel, from apprentices and foes
• There's a lot of complexity – so having a test room with challenges, akin to what Inscryption had with its puzzles, would be a great move.
• The main theme: fear of being vulnerable and futile struggle to avoid that through control. But "invulnerability" in relationships is futile and damaging.