Project Proposals

Due Friday, April 16 via e-mail

Notice the specific numbered questions at the bottom!

General Guidelines

• You may work in teams. With your powers combined, you can accomplish more than working individually; and working on a team is how most actual games are created, after all. You may choose to specialize, focusing only on the animation (for example), or be generalists dividing up the coding and art eqully. All I ask is that you turn in a reasonably equitable plan for how to divide up the work (see below).
• You may use any tool, code library, or platform you like, as long as I can run, compile, and debug it. This includes: Inform 7, Flash/ActionScript, HTML forms, Game Maker, RPG Maker, ChoiceScript (see below), any freely downloadable extensions to Flash, Java, C/C++ with OpenGL, the Python pygames library, the Dragon Age: Origins mod toolset, the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Engine, Oblivion mods, Android apps, and the trial version of the Unity 3D web engine. It does not include XNA games, iPhone games, Wii games, or the Torque engine -- sorry, I don't have the ability to compile and debug those.
• Think beyond the class. Often, people in creative professions get jobs based on the strength of their portfolios. This is a great chance to make something you can show off, and maybe enter in a competition like the Independent Games Festival. Alternately, if you're thinking of some interactive fiction written in Inform, consider making it fit the annual IF competition guidelines.
• Think outward-spiraling design -- make it playable early and often. As you've noticed from the assignments, it can be easy to be so ambitious in your project that you run out of time to implement everything. Make a plan so that even if your partner is abducted by aliens and you lose the use of both your hands, your unfinished game nevertheless looks finished because you were constantly adding and testing little features one at a time, rather than hoping it would all come together in the end.
• The Hook. What's the single most compelling reason to play your game instead of any other, similar game? Figure out the most interesting part of your idea, and find a way to state it in a single sentence. This will help you figure out where to concentrate your creative energy and time on the project, and will evoke more positive responses from people when you describe your game to them, instead of a long-winded answer or a hedging it's complicated.

Project suggestions

• If you liked the concept behind Alter Ego but thought you could do better, there's a company called Choice of Games that has started releasing similar games -- and has made the JavaScript-based interpreter for their scripting language, ChoiceScript, freely available. Consider writing a story-heavy game in ChoiceScript.
• Write a game in Inform 7 that takes advantage of what you've learned about game storytelling concepts, such as staging, pacing, and player styles.
• Upgrade your Flash shooter game to include multiple levels, more kinds of power-ups, and enemies with different attack patterns; or try some of the options in that assignment that you didn't experiment with the first time, like the ability to pick up items Adventure-style, or Star Control-like turn-and-thrust propulsion.
• Make an Adventure-like game in Flash.
• Make a point-and-click Flash adventure game, similar to either the Monkey Island type classic adventures or the Today I Die-like puzzle game, using the techniques mentioned in the point-and-click Flash lecture.
• Write a module for Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age: Origins, or The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion that introduces a new quest to one of those games.
• Make a Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior style RPG with RPG Maker XP or RPG Maker VX, respectively.
• Make a casual game that isn't a Match Three, such as a word-finding game, hidden object game, or time management game.
• Make a platformer with multiple levels, varied enemy types, and more power-ups.
• Do some original research on the effects of video games, or on game culture in MMOs, and write a paper about it.
• Make a Tower Defense game similar to Plants vs. Zombies, following the steps outlined in lecture.
• Write a turn-based strategy Flash game.
• Make a board game or Flash game meant to simulate a system or historical event. If it's a board game, test your game out on some players, and report on whether they learned the lessons you intended.
• Write some AI for a game, and test it to see how well it works.
• Try out the Unity 3D engine for making 3D web-based and iPhone/iPad games.

Project Proposal Questions

1. What's the hook -- the single sentence description of your game that will make people want to play it?
2. Will you be on a team? If so, who's on it, and who will do what?
3. What did you learn from the class that will go into this thing?
4. What code and art resources exist, either from the class or on the web, that can reduce the time it takes for you to make this thing?
5. What is your plan for incrementally adding features and content, so that the game is testable and playable at any stage in development?
6. What will you have working by Demo Day (May 4)?

Project Grading

As you might expect, a score higher than 100% will result in an S Rank.

Good luck, good hunting (the bugs), and have fun!