After playing the new hotness (fortunes weave) I ended up wondering about what

Here's the thing about game development - we plan for modularity (meaning that it should be possible to make each major part independently and at the same time as the other major parts). For example, consider the kind of technology and tooling that we would need to build one route in a game like Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave. We'd need a quest editor, cinematic editor, combat editor, item editor, character editor, combat map layout tool, and so on, right? Now consider what kind of technology and tooling we would need to build two routes in Fortune's Weave. Can you think of any additional tools or technology that we'd need for two routes that we wouldn't for one route? What about if we were making three routes? What about eight routes?

For a game like Fortune's Weave with disparate routes being such a core gameplay element, it helps to understand how the process works. First, we build one route as our "first playable" during [preproduction] to prove out the gameplay and show the executives that the game will work. Then we use the tools that we built during preproduction to build the other routes and intertwine them. Thus, if we had plans for eight routes and have to cut down to four, we figure out which four routes are the strongest, and then we figure out what we might be able to save from the cut routes to make the core routes stronger. Then, we move forward with this new plan to build them out. This keeps most of us working and productive, with minimal loss of momentum or development resources.

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