Final Project: A Complete Game with a Theme

GAME 615 - American University

Description

The final project is for you to create a complete (small) game. Where the weekly exercises were intended to give you experience and practice with the technical topics in the course, the final project should be a complete, tuned, fun and relatively good-looking game that you could give to a stranger and it would be reasonable to expect that they would enjoy their experience (that’s harder than it sounds!).

Your game should either explore a concept have some sort of story.

What I Mean by a Complete Game

A start screen/menu (this can be as simple as your title and a “click to begin” button
Something that ends the gameplay and brings the player back to the main menu. Usually there would be a way to win, and a way to lose
During gameplay, there should be no way to “get stuck”
During gameplay, your world should be bounded (no falling off of cliffs forever, or flying off into infinity)
Audio?
Finally, try your best to get rid of anything that isn’t directly adding positively to the gameplay experience. This means that there shouldn’t be unnecessary long corridors, or hard to find collectables, etc.

Groups

You can work in groups of up to 3 people. If you do, you should all contribute equally to the project and all group members must complete the peer evaluation form. The size and complexity of your game should scale with your group size (i.e. I expect more from a group of 3 than a group of 1).

Deadlines

#	Due Date	Title	Description
1	4/12/23	Design Document	Your design document should include: A detailed plan for the game. This will involve describing all of the following components: Gameplay description (what is your “core mechanic” Input Visual style Audio style Interface sketches Story/theme description Three feature set targets: the “low-bar “of you will create (this should still be a “complete game”) a target that you expect to get done a desired high-bar if things go exceptionally well. Plan these out carefully, so that you can definitely achieve the first goal, and likely hit the second A timeline of what you need to accomplish and by when to complete your game on time. Look at the personal schedules, your classes and other projects, and plan accordingly. Be sure to spend time on this. The document should be 2-3 pages (though there is no minimum/maximum). We will review this in person together in our one on one meetings during class.
1	4/26/23	Core Mechanic Playtesting	At this point, the core mechanic of your game should be mostly complete. In class, we will identify areas that you should spend time improving, including bugs, and gameplay features.
3	5/10/23	Final Submission	Submit a build of your game for at least one of the following: Mac, PC, or WebGL, as well as all of the project files to your GitHub repository. Additionally, create one or more of the following and submit it along with your project files to your GitHub repository: A “one pager” where you put a description of your game and some representative screenshots (think of it like an ad for your game) A simple trailer that shows gameplay A simple website that describes your game with images Finally, if you can make it, please show your game to your fellow students at the Capstone showcase!

Submission of Final and your Collection of Exercises

Submit your final project to your GitHub repository. Be sure to include a README.md file that describes your game and how to play it.