Rapid Production Game Project

The following material was developed by Sam George

Themes

Mechanic Design: at least two well-developed mechanics that relate to your game’s thematic elements.

Player Engagement: at least one in-game feedback system to tell the player they have performed a

mechanic related action and its result for each mechanic.

Effective Teamwork: creating a group timeline, effectively coordinating members’ work time, and having open communication. Please be sure to strongly identify your members’ roles at the beginning of the development cycle and stick to those roles throughout the process.

Description

This project is intended to draw focus to several key elements of game development: mechanic design, player engagement, and effective teamwork. You will have four weeks to design, plan, and produce a complete game, it is recommended you work in vertical slices1 to minimize development time. To best facilitate this, the four weeks will be broken up into key slices with each one ending in a submission of what you accomplished based on your preliminary timeline, how you did it, and why you chose to do it that way. It is strongly recommended you not use a 3D concept for this project; as simple as some 3D games have been, they always take significantly longer to develop assets for and program.

Rubrics

Presentation
Game

Weekly Breakdown

Week 1 – ideation, planning, and pitching.
Week 2 – development, first milestone check-in.
Week 3 – development, second milestone check-in.
Week 4 – wrap up, final milestone check-in, debrief.

Instructions

Week 1

Ideation – come up with a small-scope game concept and explicitly identify at least two mechanics and two feedback methods to alert the player to them. It is also acceptable to use a game concept you have come up with previously but still identify the two mechanics and two feedback systems.

Planning – design a timeline that clearly describes your team’s development plan for each week. Include each member’s individual goals and how they relate to that week’s milestone. Be prepared to describe in

1 Vertical Slice: developing a game in such a way that all types of systems show major changes between timetable slices.

detail the work completed by each member and the reasoning behind it at the end of each week. Use any tools you like to organize team tasks and milestones as long as you can share access to it with your teacher.

Pitching – as with the previous development cycle, each team will have an opportunity to pitch their plan at the end of the first week. This will entail your game mechanics, feedback systems, team member roles, milestone goals, and concept art.

Week 2

Development – work on your game according to your week 2 milestone and be sure to document the changes you make for later submission.

First Milestone Check-in – submit a description of each team member’s work, the reasoning behind it, and how it related to this milestone. Please also write a short statement about how your team is working together, what works or doesn’t, and why.

Week 3

Development – work on your game according to your week 3 milestone and be sure to document the changes you make for later submission.

Second Milestone Check-in – submit a description of each team member’s work, the reasoning behind it, and how it related to this milestone. Please also write a short statement about how your team is working together, what works or doesn’t, and why.

Week 4

Wrap Up: finish your development process by confirming all your programmatic systems work (pay special attention to UI elements) and create a final build.

Final Milestone Check-In – submit a description of each team member’s work, the reasoning behind it, and how closely it met the goals your team set at the beginning of the development cycle. Please also write a short statement about how your team worked together, what worked or didn’t, and why. It is important to have a verbose record of each member’s contributions to the project as that will make this far easier to complete.

Debrief – standard post-mortem of your team’s game, be prepared to demonstrate your game to the class using effective pitch skills.