At this point, I'm going to call the Anthracite Inception Phase complete. Basically the biggest risks were unknown market size and lack of content partnerships. I've decided that Anthracite will be a labor of love and a vehicle for updating my mobile technical skills, so market size isn't very relevant anymore.
I got a great critique of my content partnership strategy (which had some surprisingly large holes), and I've identified some very inexpensive sources of art to get the platform started. Part of the business case feedback was that artists and content partners get dozens of royalty-only offers from grand dreamers. In order to set myself apart, I need to be able to show them something beyond concept documents.
The feature list has undergone some refinement. The biggest new feature is user-created adventures. I'll be publishing the XML specification for dialog, cutscenes and battles. Gamemaster capability is something that's missing from existing mobile RPG platforms. Customers will be able to use the images, equipment and effects from any purchased product. I need to do some more careful consideration about an adventure builder tool, because that adds serious scope to the project. The initial feature release for custom adventures might be for Notepad Warriors only.
I find it promising that Michael Ham (mindtakerr @ Fear the Boot) is doing an app with branching stories. Several writers have already expressed interest. It will benefit Anthracite if the story-tree skill base gets built up among Booters.
The Elaboration Phase goal is to produce a working JavaScript/CSS prototype for iPad demos and YouTube videos. The use case realizations should be valid for JavaScript, Java and Objective-C. Also, I need to develop at least a basic level of marketing capability: Twitter, landing site, podcast contacts, keyword searches.
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