Topic: Shortest Development Cycle?

I'm thinking specifically WiiWare, PSN, or XBLA titles... i know alot of them get popped out pretty quick with small development teams (World of Goo was put out by 2 main guys and 2 others for back-up). I was wondering if you can think of any especially short dev cycles.

i could really use some input if you guys have any info. a friend of mine is graduating in May and going into the Navy immediately after, and we're wondering if it would be possible to put together an rpg before then. we've started on music, basic programming, and character design (though an ever-talented pixelman would not be turned down, should he like to contribute. ), so we just want to know, if we get on this, can we finish it?

oh, and what exactly needs to be done to get a license to develop games for wiiware? i know nintendo is encouraging the upstart of small teams....

I am not sure but you do raise some interesting questions.

@bro - official licenses for wiiware run about 10k and you need to have a nintendo rep come check out that you have an office, a portfolio of work, etc. If you're at the stage where you're asking how long it takes to develop an RPG, chances are this is a bit of an impossiblility . For reference, pulling like 10 hour days for a week designing/creating art assets/writing sound effects and music/programming, I was able to finish a run'n'gun (using Multimedia Fusion, not from-the-ground-up) in a week. I can feasibly see the next 6 months of non-stop work resulting in an RPG, but again--if this is a first attempt, chances are you may wanna set your goals a bit lower (or use game creation software of some kind to speed up the process).

But yeah, at any rate, I'd write off Wiiware/PSN/Live Marketplace feasibility...at least until Nintendo's user-generated apps service starts. It's more frustration than it's worth in my experience--even my company's iffy about if they even want to spend the money on a Wiiware dev. license and they actually have money/office/etc. Us bedroom types make better quality freeware developers

thanks, Waluigi. if anyone out there reading the forums knows anything (i'm kinda hoping one of our resident deveolpers such as Ghostfire will happen to be browsing, but what are the chances of that?) about this, please let me know.

edit: thanks, Swerd. dang. that's alot of money. and you're probably right that it wouldn't be possible anyway. but dang. so how did 2D Boy do it?