To create the development roadmap for Anno 1800, they need to define the important parts to work on and ensure that the allocation of the workload is doable and fair. While talking about disciplines, it is the responsibility of the production team to oversee that process and to ensure that the work of all disciplines comes together. As the different development disciplines rely on each other’s work, the production team defines a roadmap to ensure that everything comes together at the right time. It would be too much to dive into that today, so we decided to dedicate some of our future DevBlogs to these various disciplines. Game development is split into various disciplines – from concept to 3D artists, game designers, various coders (gameplay, engine, network etc.), writing and content creation, QA and many more. Getting the game ready for the Alpha phase requires the manpower of the whole team. One example from our Milestone Meetings- a clip of one of the new ship assets in the game
ANNO 1602 BUILDINGS FULL
With the pre-alpha state, our goal is to achieve the full Alpha version of the game to follow up with a similar process for the Beta. During this time, the game is playable but usually in a very rough state and many features are still very bare bone or even placeholder. So at what stage is Anno 1800 now? To be even more precise, we are right now in the pre-alpha state, which is when all building blocks of the early pre-production come together. During this time, we take all the features and concepts from our vision to work on the foundation of the game. While we announced the new title during Gamescom, the team started the actual development several months ago, with the pre-production phase.
![anno 1602 buildings anno 1602 buildings](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HodjhiqTfqA/maxresdefault.jpg)
With a complex project like a new Anno, which involves a big team of experts over many years, it is an important step to decide if we can start development with the current vision, or if we have to go back to the drawing board. Often called “vertical slice”, this first prototype helps to test if our concept works and if we are on the right track. With our final concept for the game, we build our first playable prototype. Every game developer would love to create the biggest game ever seen, but we have to work within the boundaries of development time, work force and budget, with all of them being closely intertwined. There are creative aspects, game design elements and production steps, which ensure that our vision is achievable and feasible.
![anno 1602 buildings anno 1602 buildings](https://images.gog-statics.com/345ba3344a7fd6c54468fae53b1e0cd8ac943516c81e71b1eacd4621bb04e3ec_product_card_v2_mobile_slider_639.jpg)
![anno 1602 buildings anno 1602 buildings](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VJzRMH3qIsg/maxresdefault.jpg)
That process can take a while and involves a core team of experts, dedicating their time researching and designing the concept. With our vision (outlined in this previous post), we had an idea about the game’s premise but the concept phase would help us to define what features the final game would need in order to achieve our goals. To let you help us shape the future of Anno 1800, we will provide exclusive insights into how our team in Mainz works and with that, get you ready for future feedback sessions and playtests. Have you ever wondered how game development is structured and how we work on certain features of the game?