World rules: how reality works (magic/tech source + cost + limits — hard rules
Peoples: species/cultures with naming conventions, values, taboos, social
Art/audio language: motifs per faction, recurring symbols, swear/timeline
Hook: how the player naturally encounters it (world event/overheard/board/
Structure: objective beats with at least TWO valid approaches (combat/stealth/
Script: key NPC dialogue in voice (10-20 lines), including a lie/misdirection
Rewards: exp/items mapped to expected level, world-state change (visible
Data: quest ID, prerequisite flags, fail/recovery states, edge cases (NPC
Milestone intent: what fun hypothesis or production risk this milestone kills
Break into epics with dependency graph (what art needs design locks, what code
Sprint-by-sprint backlog table: feature | owner | design lock date | asset
Capacity reality: account for {{holidays/sick/context-switch/support}}, leave
Risks register (probability × impact, owner, mitigation), playtest schedule
Recruitment: target players vs convenience testers, sample size per round
Observation: timing targets (time-to-first-verb, deaths per room, checkpoints
Analysis: affinity-map observations into issues with severity/frequency
Cadence: rolling weekly tests, hypothesis per change, and how to avoid
KPIs that drive decisions: D1/D7/D30 retention, session length/frequency,
Event schema: event name convention (noun_verb_past), required common fields
Funnel/heatmap tables: per-level (enters/retries/death-cause/loot/clear times),
