The big holidays are rushing to meet us, but none of us feels any urge to relax. We know that you expect a lot from us, and we are eager to live up to your expectations. To those of you who have played the game and left ratings and reviews, we are more grateful than words can express. Know that we live for your feedback, even the constructive criticism, because we want to make this game better for you.
I got invited to be a flower on the wall of a pretty big strategic meeting this week, discussing the long-term fate of our “Learning Mode.”
The life of a developer exists in a (ideally gentle) tension between the long-term and the short-term. A major part of how we do things around here is the concept of the two-week “sprint.” Each sprint involves setting clear goals for every developer and team member with measurable results so that everyone knows what to expect and how to help one another out. However, we cannot live our lives two weeks at a time. Some goals have to be discussed in terms of a larger scope.
Hence, the meeting I got to observe, in which we talked about all the things we want to see in the learning mode as it expands, not simply in the two weeks or with the next update, but in the coming year.
I can tell you, we have big plans.
Things change in development, especially over the course of time, so you mustn’t take anything I am about to reveal as gospel, but we are looking at taking the super-basic Salsa 101 mode that is currently in the game and expanding it into a five-stage lesson (which we can then replicate to teach other styles of dance as well).
- Lesson 1 – Rhythm and basic foot placement
- Lesson 2 – Holds
- Lesson 3 – Moves, including turns and dips
- Lesson 4 – Routine, where you learn a string of steps to be performed and practiced
- Lesson 5 – Practica / Freedance
Building up the mode so it can integrate these five stages will take a while. We want to get it right. There was a lot of discussion at the meeting about getting the technical side of things right. We talked about everything from making sure your virtual teacher’s lips sync right with their instructions to whether or not we needed to build an in-game metronome and how that should work.
There are some cool short-term announcements coming.
Watch our social media and store pages for those, but I get really excited when I get one of these rare chances to stand on a mountaintop for a moment, look out toward the horizon to see where this whole thing is going. I am even more excited that I get a chance to let you get a peek with me. However, while we look to the future, it will always be the present that matters most, so listen for the music, keep your body moving, and dance with us!