EECS 494 – Game Design and Implementation – Project 3 – Final Project

Exactly one team member must submit your Project 3 Registration. This team member will be responsible for updating it every time it must be updated.

We expect you to do a bit of research in order to discover similar games with related mechanics, to explain the differences in the mechanics of these games to us, and to explain the ramifications of these differences. We want to know how the player experience changes as a result of their design choices, what the advantages of one design decision over another might be, and perhaps how you might have chosen to alter the design of the game you're implementing as a result of your survey. Hopefully this will help you to come up with ideas for your custom level that really fit in with the game you're reimplementing. You are required to investigate at least 6 other games and to write something at least on the order of 8 pages.

Don't pick multiple games from the same developers or the same franchise.

Note that this is not a book review assignment. Simple Wikipedia-esque description should be minimal. Get to the meat of analyzing and contrasting their design decisions.

Also note that your game choices for comparison must be reasonably similar for your comparisons to be useful to you. Two games simply having power-ups isn't enough, but two games having similar movement styles but handling the camera slightly differently would be right on the money.

Additionally, all team members are expected to contribute to this research and documentation approximately equally (just like the rest of the assignment).

Here's an example research and analysis doc for a reimplementation of Level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros..

Are you showing progress? Does it look like you are on the right track? Does it look like you've already tried several things by this point?

Deliverables:

1. Share your burndown chart with us and be sure to keep it updated, following the burndown chart instructions.
2. Commit an up-to-date copy of your burndown chart named Documents/burndown-1.xlsx. Go to File -> Download as -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).subdirectory of your repo. Go to File -> Download as -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).
3. Commit a justification document(see below) named Documents/justification-1.pdf.
4. Commit your research and analysis .pdf in the Documents/ subdirectory of your repo.
5. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.

Did you answer the toughest question about your project? Does it seem unlikely that you'll have to entirely change directions going forward? Major pivots should be over at this time.

Deliverables:

1. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.

You are required to create a Google Form resembling the example Ledbetter Playtest Survey for easy data collection.

You must make that form available to your partner team along with a playtest script resembling the example Ledbetter Playtest Script (.pdf) specifying exactly what you want your playtesters to say, how you want them to run the playtest after the initial speech, and what data you want them to collect.

I'd actually prefer that you limit how much information your partner team is required to present to a simple introduction. They should NOT have to give a lengthy tutorial.

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. You must update your Project 3 Registration.
2. Submit a PDF of your Google Form and a PDF of your playtest script to Canvas.

Do you have a basically complete game? Can we play it and more seriously judge the fun? Omissions should be limited. Even menus and UI elements should all basically be there.

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. Commit an up-to-date copy of your burndown chart named Documents/burndown-2.xlsx. Go to File -> Download as -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).
2. Commit a justification document(see below) named Documents/justification-2.pdf.
3. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.

Submit a PDF to Canvas containing:

1. Group number
2. Names of all 4 teammates
3. Contact information (U-M emails for one or more group members would be preferred)
4. Game title
5. The logline for your game
6. Enough additional background, screen shots, ... for someone to evaluate your requests
7. A list of audio assets (sound effects, music, ...) you think you might need. Keep in mind that the students are only required to make a couple minutes worth of audio, so don't be too ambitious.

You must go through your partner team's script for 4 (groups of) players assuming approximately 7 minutes of testing per playthrough. If your partner group requested multiple game modes or extraordinarily long playthroughs, scale down the number of (groups of) players accordingly.

Do your best to avoid going off script or providing additional information to the players at all, but if you feel like you must in order to get through things, take detailed notes on each deviation from the provided script

Finally, write a half page executive summary of what you think is the most important feedback to provide to your partner team.

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. Submit a PDF of your group-requested notes and a PDF of your executive summary to Canvas.

You are required to create a Google Form resembling the example Ledbetter Playtest Survey for easy data collection.

You must make that form available to your partner team along with a playtest script resembling the example Ledbetter Playtest Script (.pdf) specifying exactly what you want your playtesters to say, how you want them to run the playtest after the initial speech, and what data you want them to collect.

I'd actually prefer that you limit how much information your partner team is required to present to a simple introduction. They should NOT have to give a lengthy tutorial.

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. You must update your Project 3 Registration.
2. Submit a PDF of your Google Form and a PDF of your playtest script to Canvas.

Obviously partner team feedback isn't really available yet, but are you cleaning up anything that might have been rough in the alpha? Are you polishing and honing things so that, assuming the alphas are positively received, what you're going to end up with will be a strictly better version?

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. Commit an up-to-date copy of your burndown chart named Documents/burndown-3.xlsx. Go to File -> Download as -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).
2. Commit a justification document(see below) named Documents/justification-3.pdf.
3. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.

You must go through your partner team's script for 4 (groups of) players assuming approximately 7 minutes of testing per playthrough. If your partner group requested multiple game modes or extraordinarily long playthroughs, scale down the number of (groups of) players accordingly.

Do your best to avoid going off script or providing additional information to the players at all, but if you feel like you must in order to get through things, take detailed notes on each deviation from the provided script

Finally, write a half page executive summary of what you think is the most important feedback to provide to your partner team.

The start of class is the cutoff. You CANNOT be even 1 minute late.

Deliverables:

1. Submit a PDF of your group-requested notes and a PDF of your executive summary to Canvas.

We need you to fill out Showcase Registration with your showcase needs, a promo image, and a link to your game trailer.

We require you to make a 30-45 second trailer mp4 with the name of your game and your names at the start and end and voiceover with us using Google Drive.

For this assignment, updated links can be resubmitted to the same assignment without fear of getting a late penalty.

Did you do a good job of responding to partner team feedback? This is the last build you'll get any feedback on before the showcase. This should seem done. Any remaining tweaks ought to be balance tweaks, pure polish, and the like.

Deliverables:

1. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.

You are required to attend the EECS 494 Computer Games Showcase in The Bob and Betty Beyster Building Atrium and 1670 BBB from 6:00 PM until teardown is complete. Invite your friends.

This is it! It better be good. Everyone you know and love will be judging you. (No pressure.)

This is also the cutoff. Grading won't be long after this.

Deliverables:

1. Commit an up-to-date copy of your burndown chart named Documents/burndown-4.xlsx. Go to File -> Download as -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).
2. Commit a justification document(see below) named Documents/justification-4.pdf.
3. Following the course submission instructions, submit a .7z file generated with one of the eecs-494-unity-canvas scripts to Canvas.