This is your chance to make something "big." You have a number of weeks to work on it and iterate on it before the EECS 494 Computer Games Showcase, but you still must manage your scope to be able to achieve a polished, presentable final project by the deadline.
Again, we don't want to impose a ton of rules on you. We want to see what you come up with. The standard restrictions apply, however:
Hopefully that doesn't feel too restrictive. If you're really uncertain about your idea, you are welcome to run your logline by us.
The grade breakdown for this project is:
Component | Points | Description | Due |
---|---|---|---|
Project 3 Registration | 0 |
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. | February 20 |
Research and Analysis | 30 |
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.. |
March 6 |
Prototype | 50 |
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:
|
March 6 |
Gold Spike | 40 |
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:
|
March 13 |
Pivot Playtest Preparation | 20 |
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:
|
March 20 |
Alpha | 50 |
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:
|
March 20 |
Music Collaboration | +10 |
Submit a PDF to Canvas containing:
|
March 22 |
Pivot Playtest Implementation | 30 |
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:
|
March 27 |
Polish Playtest Preparation | 20 |
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:
|
April 3 |
Beta | 65 |
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:
|
April 3 |
Polish Playtest Implementation | 30 |
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:
|
April 10 |
Video Game Promos | 25 |
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. |
April 12 |
Gamma | 60 |
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:
|
April 17 |
Final Build | 80 |
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:
|
April 21 |
The justification document is a short (roughly 1 page) write-up of your sprint that should discuss the following elements:
It's worth noting that while the following points are part of your creative process, we expect that they were covered sufficiently by your research and analysis document: