skills/game-project-planner/references/discovery.md

# Discovery questions

Read for a new plan or a material scope change. Prefill answers from the current conversation and authoritative project sources. Ask concise batches of the most consequential gaps; do not present every optional question at once. Record unknowns without treating them as accepted design.

## Core questions

| Topic | Questions to resolve | Effect on the plan |
|---|---|---|
| Product | What is the genre, platform, audience and reference game? What is the distinguishing mechanic? What does the player repeatedly do, and what ends a session successfully or unsuccessfully? | Core loop, systems and content coverage |
| Endpoint | Is the goal a playable prototype, MVP, soft-launch-ready build, production handoff, store release or post-launch validation? What proves it is complete? | Final deliverable and acceptance gates |
| Experience horizon | What player age or content duration must the game support? Is the request for preparedness or measured retention? Expected session length, sessions/day and replay goals? | Progression, economy, content and retention workload |
| Responsibility | Is this a production-team plan, publisher plan or combined plan? Who owns backend/shared modules, analytics dashboards, SDKs, store submission, marketing and customer support? | Work included, excluded and external dependencies |
| Capacity | Which roles, headcounts and seniority levels are available? Full-time or how many hours/week? Who also performs QA or management? Existing code/assets/tools and external support? | Bottlenecks, reuse assumptions and estimates |
| Scope | What is mandatory, optional, deferred or explicitly excluded? Existing feature list? Who decides unresolved design? Can current priorities and milestone assignments change? | Authority and scope decisions |
| Schedule | Relative weeks or calendar dates? Kickoff date if applicable? Hard deadline or scope-driven estimate? Known absences and review cadence? | Timing and replanning points |
| Destination | Which workbook and exact template/tab? New workbook, authorized copy or existing tab? Which version is canonical? What language, PIC/status choices and review convention? | Safe edit target and presentation |

## Conditional follow-ups

- Live-service game: progression layers, unlock cadence, replay content, daily/weekly activities, event cycling and what players do after content exhaustion. Avoid assuming all games need gacha, stamina, guilds or a battle pass.
- Monetization: ads/IAP/gacha/pass required now or later? Approved placements/catalog? Which system supplies, validates and consumes each reward? Who supplies the shared integration module?
- Multiplayer: synchronous/asynchronous, party/session structure, backend authority and networking capability. Do not estimate as a small single-player add-on.
- Existing design: which descriptions are accepted, which are proposals, and how should blanks or conflicts be handled? Are colors manual review marks or conditional formatting?
- Spreadsheet controls: one primary milestone or multiple delivery milestones per feature? Blank or a separate status for unscheduled work? Existing native multi-select to preserve? PIC roles first or actual names?
- Reference game: which aspects are inspiration only, and which mechanics are explicitly intended? A reference does not authorize copying its full feature set.

## Brief to review

Summarize: product and loop; endpoint; player-experience horizon; production/external ownership; team capacity and reuse; mandatory/deferred scope; schedule basis; target file/template; accepted assumptions and unresolved decisions.

Propose the actual two-tab structure and only the material choices needing owner input. Continue directly when the available brief and existing authorization already resolve them.