Group Project SpecificationsNOTE: Project Description may change.OutlineProject OverviewTeam Websites & ReportsPart 1 - Game Proposal + Design SketchAdvice on how to make a good game:Due: Feb 15: Game Proposal and In-Class PresentationComponents of your game proposal:Components of your in-class presentation:Part 2 - Design Specification + Interim ReportPart 3 - Minimum TargetPart 4 - Alpha Release Demo Fair and VideoTechnical SetupGradingDigital VideoPart 5 - Playtesting and Final PaperFinal WriteupBrief Final PresentationPersonal Contribution WriteupNumbersGradingGroup Project SpecificationsNOTE: Project Description may change.Outline Quick access to the sections of this document: - Team websites & Project Reports - Part 1 - Game Proposal + Design Sketch - Part 2 - Design Specification + Interim Report - Part 3 - Progress Report - Part 4 - Alpha Release - Part 5 - Playtesting and Final Paper Project Overview This term you will undertake a group project (4 people) to design and build a prototype game. Each project group will be graded as a team. That is, each person receives the same grade if each person contributes equally. At the end of the semester, I will ask each student how much each team member contributed, including themselves. Lack of participation will result in a lower grade. Great teams have great contributors, each contributing equally. Within the team, you must negotiate on how much and what each person will contribute. Think carefully about your team members: Where do people live and what hours do they work? Where will you meet? What skills do the different individuals bring to the group (computing, programming, design, evaluation, statistics, etc.)? I would strongly encourage you to form a heterogeneous team full of individuals with varying types of skills. Team Websites & Reports Each team should create a "home" page which includes: 1) a brief (paragraph) descriptionof the game; 2) the team members & team name; 3) Links to auxiliary material for projectparts 1-4, 4) Demo executables. Each part of the project will include a deliverable report. This report will be handed in on paper.The format of the reports for the individual parts is up to you, but it should be professionally prepared, expressive, grammatically sound, illustrative of your efforts and process, and easy to understand. A good design effort can easily be hampered by a poor communication of what was done. We will help you get space for your pages and get this all set up. Part 1 - Game Proposal + Design Sketch Due February 7, 2007Advice on how to make a good game:1. Think SmallMost of the games you buy in the store involve six to twelve months of work by twenty to one hundred trained professionals. Those trained professionals include full-time artists, full-time sound designers and hordes of programmers. People with years of experience in those arts alone. And many game titles build off of a body of code developed by the company for previous titles or related merchandising--they're not starting from scratch. You need to design a very small project.2. Do One Thing Well To do well in this course, you need to do one thing well. Your game needs to really stand out in one way (but NOT all ways). Doing one aspect of it well will get you a better grade than doing a mediocre job on a lot of things. If you're doingan Unreal game, maybe you could do something neat with a twist on physics. If you do a text adventure, make it witty, well-written and with clever puzzles. A few extremely well done puzzles are better than an entire involved game with mediocre quality throughout. Do NOT do lots of levels for your game. All you need is one, small well-done level. Your game might excel in the gorgeous graphics, the witty sound effects, the clever puzzles, the well-tuned user interface.Make it really stand out in one way.3. Understand the Affordances of Your Chosen Tools The tools that are available for game development have different strengths and weaknesses. Use your chosen tool for what it's best for. Don't fight against it. If you want to do 3D, you might be better off using a higher-level package like UnReal (especially if you don't already know OpenGL or DirectX). You give up a certain amount of creative control when you decide to use UnReal--there are things it does well, and things it does badly. Design your game so that you can usethe tool for what it's best for.4. Plan in Layers "The best laid plans of mice and men...."You can't accurately anticipate how long each step in your project is going to take.Consequently, you need to make a detailed development schedule that is layered. Isuggest this structure:1. Functional minimum: minimal items to make something that you might call a game. You'd be embarrassed if you only got this far, but at least it'd be something.2. Your low target: Your target for what you want to get done--the least possible to feel sort-of OK about the result. 3. Your desirable target: This is what you're aiming for, if things go reasonably well. 4. Your high target: It might be possible to get this much done, if all goes extremely well 5. Your extras: Stuff that you know you can't get done this semester, but youmight add later if you decide your game is cool enough to keep working on after the class is over, just for fun.Structure your development so that you complete each layer before going on to the next. Plan exactly what is entailed in each layer, and which team member is going to do each component.5. Read the sample: Battle Plague Proposal Due: Feb 15: Game Proposal and In-Class PresentationComponents of your game proposal:1. Description of Your Game: Describe the game in detail: approximately one to two pages text plus three pages of mocked-up screenshots and/or sketches. Pencil sketches are fine. I'm not looking for beautiful art at this point. 2. Layered Development Schedule: Break your project down into the layers described above and give us a schedule for when you expect to complete each layer. Remember to include which team member will be responsible for each part.3. Assessment: Tell us what the main strength of the game will be. What part is going to be the most cool? Who might want to play this game? What do they do inthe game? What virtual world should the system simulate? Basically, you are setting up a worldview for your subsequent design. What criteria should be used to judge if your design is a success or not?Components of your in-class presentation:Please come to