It's finally time! No no, we're not revealing anything about a next project now, or any time soon... BUT we are starting to think about it! While we work on console development and adding new stuff to Ultimate Chicken Horse, we're also starting to brainstorm for our next project, whatever that is.

After a long brainstorming meeting, we decided that we would prototype a few ideas throughout the next bunch of months and see if there's one that stands out. The way this will work (at least in the current plan), is that each member of the team will pitch a concept. Each of us will pitch both a high-level game concept (that can include story, mechanics, characters, etc.) along with a prototype pitch. The prototype pitch will consist of all of the things needed to make a prototype, that is, what we need the rest of the team to help us with.

The combination of the high-level pitch, "the dream", and the prototype pitch, which is more of a "steps to prove the concept", should lead to one of a few possibilities.

We all like the game, the vision is there, and we play-test it
We all like the game, but there's no viability in the market or the scope is off
We don't like the game, we drop it
Some of us like the game, some don't, we play-test it and see what happens

I'm curious to know what other developers (or non-developers!) think of this and how you go about doing the early phases of your next project, so I'd encourage going to the Gamasutra article to leave a comment.