Revise And Polish

Get your game portfolio ready.

For this assignment, you will have the opportunity to continue working on a previous lab, assignment, project, or game you've made in or outside of class. Take this chance to make something "portfolio-ready," while thinking deeply about your portfolio's audience (e.g., how much time will an employer spend with your portfolio). You can also use this as an opportunity to get feedback from the class about how you might improve your game. Consider playtesting. You may work with a teammate (limited to teams of two).

This assignment must be different from your main project in the class.

Goals for Revise and Polish:

• Practice setting scope of work based on project timeline and developer capability (team or solo)
• Improve sense for art direction by improving visual and audio elements of game.
• Continue to use iterative design to improve user experience. Use feedback to generate actionable changes to gameplay.
• Practice professionalism as you work toward a career in games.

In many studios around the world, teams utilize the Agile project management methodology to efficiently run their development. You will be introduced to this concept and manage your projects using these techniques to emulate the work environment you will likely enter soon.
You will also be introduced the MDA framework for evaluating your games. These skills will be further utilized in the next project also.

Proposal

Present the project you will be revising and describe your plan of action. A key element of your plan should involve identifying your game's pillars.
Use Trello (or your favorite project management tool) to post the following. Link on your course portfolio:

• Choose 1-2 games that you want to improve. Include links to play the latest build, and any documentation you have.
• If you already have a well polished game on your portfolio, consider a game that has potential but needs to be cleaned up.
• Identify the projects flaws. What is the game lacking that you would want to improve? Be detailed in your critique and plan to improve. Add suggestions from class.
• Develop a backlog of tasks that you can complete in the timeline available. This should include time estimates for each task.
• Describe your game through the lenses of the MDA Framework.

Playtest

Create a Google Form or Microsoft Form for your playtesters to provide you feedback. You should include thought provoking questions and prompts to allow your players to provide insight into their experience. Your questions should reflect specific areas you are interested in getting feedback on.

• The Definitive Guide To Playtest Questions
• What To Do After The Playtest: 20 Playtesting Questions That Set Players Up To Give Great Answers

Here are some examples from Professor Warren:

Final Presentation

You will present the final build of your game and discuss your work with the class.
▪️ Identify the role the MDA Framework played in your work.
▪️ Discuss your experience using time estimations on your task list.
▪️ Discuss your playtest results and what items you added to your task lists because of them.
▪️ Explore the next steps for the game. Is it ready for your portfolio? What else needs to be done?

Final Project

Design and Build a Game!

The final project in this course is designed to give you the time and guidance needed to design and develop a game with a significant scope. We will spend the remainder of the course building this game. Each week you will submit a progress report where you describe what you worked on for the previous week.

Teams

The first step of the project is to identify your team. Students will have the opportunity to pitch their game ideas and recruit team members. Find a team and project that you can be an asset on and that would make a strong portfolio piece for you.
Each team should start a project management board that utilizes time tracking tools. Trello, Jira, or Hack N Plan have time tracking features. For Trello you can use Activity Timer.

If a student needs to be placed on a team I will facilitate assigning them to one.

Roles: Each team member must add a card to their project management board that identifies their role/roles on the team.

| Required | Team Lead: Responsible for general leadership of the game's production. Ensure the functioning and well-being of the team. Resolve disputes. If there are team issues, this will be my point of contact.

| Required | Scrum Lead: Responsible for organizing task lists w/individual team members. Ensure effective communication during development. Keep team members on tasks and completing tasks on time.

Design Lead: Responsible for leading the game's design and communicating with art and engineer leads to ensure they understand the games design. Should have strong understanding of the game's pillars.

Art Lead: Responsible for leading art direction. Disseminating tasks to artists to complete current sprint. Ensuring art assets look like they all belong to the same game and support the art direction outlined in the Design Document.

Programming Lead: Responsible for delegating programming tasks in support of completing each sprint.

Designer, Artist, Programmer, Audio Engineer, etc.: These are the non-lead core developer roles that complete tasks assigned to them for each sprint to drive the project forward.

Defining Your Game

Establish your games pillars and values

Identifying the pillars of your game establishes a framework for selecting game mechanics and other design choices that go into building a game. Each pillar should be carefully chosen as an essential value that supports the goal of the game. Here are a few helpful tips from Charlie Cleveland of Unknown Worlds:

• Pillars shouldn't take long to make: perhaps a couple hours of the leads talking and writing together. I think a great game could certainly have only one pillar, but I think it would be hard to make one with five or more. When in doubt, have fewer.
• Ideally, everything that goes into your game will be in direct support of a pillar. When an idea doesn't seem to support a pillar, it can be discarded, without it being personal or subjective from the lead.
• Each pillar is like the horizon - it leads you somewhere but you'll never fully arrive.
• Ideally, every aspect of your game will evolve, except the pillars and values. If you change one along the way, it would probably ripple to create a lot more work (or reduce the "integrity" of your game).
• When a straightforward or low-cost idea supports multiple pillars, you can implement it immediately - probably with no questions asked and no meetings. This is where your game can make big leaps.
• Even if you're a team of one, pillars are useful for yourself, to keep integrity in your game your development on track.

Examples of Games and Their Pillars

Below are some examples of possible game pillars for popular titles. Read through these examples and see if you can identify design choices these developers made that are supported by their pillars.
After reading through these examples, work with your team to identify your games pillars. Post them to your project management board.

1. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

   • Immersive Open World

   The game features a vast and detailed open world that feels alive, with dynamic weather, wildlife, and NPC routines. Players can engage in various activities, such as hunting, fishing, and interacting with NPCs, to immerse themselves in the world.

   • Character Development and Relationships

   Players take on the role of Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang, and experience his journey through the changing landscape of the Old West. Building relationships with other gang members and NPCs is a central aspect of the game, affecting both the story and gameplay.

   • Freedom of Choice

   Players have the freedom to choose how to approach missions and activities, whether through stealth, diplomacy, or violence. The game's moral choices also impact Arthur's honor and reputation.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

   • Exploration and Discovery

   Players are encouraged to explore the vast open world of Hyrule, discovering hidden secrets, shrines, and landmarks along the way. The game rewards curiosity and experimentation.

   • Dynamic Physics-Based Gameplay

   Interactions with the environment, including the use of physics-based mechanics such as rolling boulders and manipulating objects with the Magnesis rune, provide players with creative solutions to puzzles and combat encounters.

   • Player Agency and Freedom

   Players have the freedom to tackle challenges in any order they choose, with minimal handholding or guidance. This allows for a personalized and non-linear gameplay experience.

3. Death Stranding (2019)

   • Connection and Collaboration

   The game emphasizes the theme of connection, both narratively and mechanically. Players traverse a fragmented world, connecting isolated settlements and individuals through the delivery of goods and resources.

   • Exploration and Survival

   Players must navigate hazardous terrain and overcome environmental obstacles while managing resources such as stamina, cargo weight, and equipment durability. Survival elements, such as avoiding hostile entities and maintaining balance, are central to the gameplay experience.

   • Storytelling and Worldbuilding

   The game features a richly detailed world with a complex narrative exploring themes of isolation, community, and the consequences of human actions. Environmental storytelling and character interactions deepen the player's understanding of the game world.

4. Mass Effect 2 (2010)

   • Player Choice and Consequence

   Decisions made by the player have significant consequences on the game world and storyline, affecting character relationships, mission outcomes, and even the survival of certain characters.

   • Character Loyalty Missions

   Each character in the player's squad has their own loyalty mission, which provides deeper insight into their backstory and motivations. Completing these missions can strengthen the bond between the player and their squad members.

   • Interstellar Exploration

   Players can explore various planets and star systems, scanning for resources, completing side missions, and encountering unique alien species. This pillar emphasizes the vastness and diversity of the game universe.

5. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)

   • Stealth

   The core gameplay revolves around stealth mechanics, requiring players to move silently, hide in shadows, and use gadgets to avoid detection by enemies.

   • Environmental Interaction

   Players can interact with the environment to gain tactical advantages, such as shooting out lights to create darkness or using objects as distractions to lure enemies away.

   • Non-lethal Takedowns

   Encourages players to incapacitate enemies using non-lethal means, such as melee attacks or tranquilizer darts, rather than resorting to lethal force.

6. SimCity (1989)

   • City Planning and Management

   Players are tasked with building and managing a virtual city, including zoning land for residential, commercial, and industrial use, managing utilities, and balancing the city budget.

   • Population Happiness

   Keeping citizens happy and satisfied is essential for the city's success. Factors such as crime, pollution, and access to amenities affect the overall happiness of the population.

   • Disaster Response

   Players must prepare for and respond to various disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, and alien invasions, to minimize damage and maintain the city's resilience.

Design Document

Teams will work together on creating one game design document. The document should consist of both written and visual documentation. Students will be graded on their individual contributions to this document, so mark your contributions clearly.

Although you will not receive individual grades on design documents, they will be counted towards your weekly contributions. If you do not do one, all teammates will lose 50pts on their first two weekly grades.

New Projects

Written Design Documents

Meet with your team and figure out the specific format your document will take. Use this as a starting point:

• Overview
  This should be your elevator pitch paragraph revised to incorporate any feedback from class. Include your design pillars here as well. Describe the target audience for your game.
• Background/Research
  After explaining your design pillars, show other games that have addressed this type of challenge in different ways. Use different games to illustrate how others have approached your various pillars/goals. Include screenshots and breifly explain their approach and why yours is different.
• Gameplay
  Describe the game's mechanics. How does the player interact with the game? What is the player doing from moment to moment? What is the goal? When does it end?
• Game Elements
  Describe the elements in the game. How do they interact with each other or the character (if there is one)? What are their attributes?
• Artistic Style
  What will your game look like? 2D, 3D, isometric? What's your inspiration? What's the mood?
• MVP + Process
  How are you going to make this game? Start with describing your MVP. What's the smallest thing you can make that will allow you to test and evaluate your idea. Discuss implementation strategies. Discuss technical challenges.
• Appendix
  Any visual design documents that aren't referenced specifically in the text.

Divide up your responsibilities and post these roles under a Game Document list in Trello. It's up to your team how you'd like to divide up the work, however, as you will be graded on your individual contributions, I encourage you divide up the document by section or visual design document. I'm leaving the following section as a reminder of visual design document options.

Visual Design Documents/Diagrams

Explain your game visually. You should include text when appropriate, but do so minimally. You may use one of the following approaches. Please choose the one most appropriate for your game. Draw.io is a great tool for creating flow charts and diagrams, however, use whatever tool you are most comfortable with. I'd highly recommend choosing the hybrid example as one of your choices.

• Hybrid
  Here is a hybrid (storyboard + layout). Here is a well-executed student hybrid document. Although it could be cleaned up, it does a great job visually communicating the concept.
• Flowchart
  Here is an example from a pet training game. Here is one from a narrative-based puzzle game.
• Storyboard
  Here is an example.
• Map
  Here is an example. Here is another.

Continuing Projects

I need to hear your plan going forward. I highly recommend playtesting informing this. Make sure you incorporate lessons learned and playtest feedback into your plan.

Post-Mortem + Plan Document

• Playtest
  Conduct playtests of your game in its current form and provide documentation of them. Anayzle the results and use it to inform the following sections.
• Game Self-Critique + Solutions
  Create a prioritized list of your game's biggest flaws. What are your biggest problems? Re-read and summarize playtesting from last semester. Address the following topics (along with anything else you think needs work): originality, gameplay issues, aesthetics (visuals, sound), UI issues, theme, narrative. Provide an initial sentence/phrase summarizing the flaw and then a paragraph expanding on each. Quote playtest feedback from last semester to support your arguments.
• Plan + New Functionality
  Give a detailed overview of the new functionality you plan on incorporating into your game. Start with a prioritized list and expand it by describing exactly what you'll be doing and why (i.e., each list item becomes a heading/subheading). Provide visual documents to support your explanations when appropriate. The "why" is also important. Each new piece of functionality you are proposing should reference a issue identified in your self-critique (i.e., this will solve problem X) or one of your design pillars (i.e., this will help better achieve our player experience goal Y in our design pillar Z).
• Process Self-Critique and Lessons Learned
  What worked last semester and what didn't? What specifically are you going to change from a process perspective, if anything?
• Backlog
  Make a prioritized backlog for your Trello.

Bathophobia Design Document by Matthew G

Task + Time Tracking

Your project management board should have a list for each week of work from the start of this assignment until the end of the course.
A backlog of tasks should be maintained by the appropriate lead role, with the student's who work on that task assigned to it. This will allow me to filter the weekly list by user to see what each student completed for that week. If your name is not assigned to a task, I will not see it.
You should use the time tracking features to get accurate reports of how much time you spend on each task.

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