Qmap Surface
Next: Write a PICKUP.md: what the designer owes, the four open questions, qmap Phase 0 still to commit
last activity Nov 3 · waiting on the designer's first round is still not on record, though the qmap work isn't waiting on it
Every detail page lists what a thing can reach, but lists hide the shape of the answer, and our 3D map tool had never found a real job.
Not finished yet: nothing is in the product. A designer has the brief, six example sessions now tell the story of a broken rule in plain words, and qmap has started staging the first one.
Documents
With file names, on their own page →Start here
Documents
- Qmap Surface — Design Brief
- Qmap Surface — Build Notes
- Surface Map — Designer Brief
- Qmap Surface: What Each Exploration Teaches the Surface Map
- Finding Sessions: six scenarios for the dioramas
- Qmap Surface — Scene Fixtures
- Pawn Inventory — what art exists for the 13 Surface actors
- Pawns Needed for the Six Finding Sessions
- Surface map: precedents
- Qmap Surface — Prior Work
- Qmap Surface — Alternate Problem Sets
What changed
The three changes that matter most, in plain words. Open any one to see it.
- 1
A designer now has one short page with the situation, the goal and what is still open.
A brief a designer can work from · came from Mark Parsonopen →
- 2
The map's job is written as twenty plain questions people ask, starting with "what do we have?"
Twenty questions · came from Mark Parson
- 3
Six example sessions now show what a broken rule looks like, each told in plain words with a simple cast of characters.
Six stories of a broken rule · came from Mark Parsonopen →
- Past map experiments, existing character art and thirteen outside products were reviewed, so the designer starts from what already works. In words
- The map team has a list of which characters and states the six stories need, and what art already exists. In words
How we got here
Each change, traced back to the conversation it came from. A solid mark means the record names the source; a dashed one was matched by the draft and waits for review.
From the record: no recorded conversation behind this one.
c101-D2 Give the designer constraints, goals, data and stories, and leave the framing to them. — Mark Parson
A designer now has one short page with the situation, the goal and what is still open.
From the record: no recorded conversation behind this one.
No ruling needed: the work itself is the change.
The map's job is written as twenty plain questions people ask, starting with "what do we have?"
From the record: no recorded conversation behind this one.
c101-D3 Focus on violation findings and the sessions that generated them, as material for small map scenes. — Mark Parson
c101-D4 Start with pencil and paper: a page listing the actors and what happened, with a quick plain-words overview on top. — Mark Parson
Six example sessions now show what a broken rule looks like, each told in plain words with a simple cast of characters.
Thanks to
People outside Qpoint first. Every thank-you points at something they said or made.
Turned a plan into a designer's brief, then into stories
Asked for the plan to become a brief with real leeway, asked for an exhaustive set of questions, and cut the sections that over-specified. Later focused the work on sessions that broke a rule, asked for pencil and paper before any map, and asked for a quick plain-words overview.
All images
Every picture from this cycle. Click any one to step through them all.
The pairs
Everything captured · 2
The full record 4 decisions · 13 key-change entries · 2,475 words · 0 captures
The record stays as written, for agents and for audit: Key Changes, every decision, the artifacts and the visual record.
Open the record for c101 →