Game Prototype (Midterm & Final)
Your game design assignment will be graded as follows:
- 50%: Original Game Design. An original game design is one that vastly improves an existing experience or for which few if any other examples exist.
- 50%: Fit, finish and quality of prototype. A high quality prototype is one that provides clear evidence regarding the potential success or failure of your game.
- All games must be documented (digital or analog), so please allow time for photography, video, screenshots, etc. Documentation is about 20% of the Fit/Finish grade, depending on the project. some projects will be much harder to document than others. Click here for a good example of non-video documentation
Please keep in mind that these projects should reflect at least 3-4 weeks of work from a group. As this is a 200 level class, you are not expected to be experts, but you should expect to work relatively hard to make an A project.
Board Game | Card Game
If you choose to create a board game or card game prototype, the game must be presented as closely as possible to the finished product. As mentioned, it should also be an original design. This means the following:
Original board and pieces. You may not reuse any physical item from an existing game. This includes timers, tokens, cards, buzzers etc. The fabrication of some items may require support from specialized individuals, if those people are not in your group please credit them when displaying your game.
Game pieces must be near finished state. Cards and boards must be digitally printed (see print center) and reproducible, for example. It is fine to use a high quality hand process to complete game pieces (e.g. painting, wood sculpture, 3D print), but please make sure that the final product is converted to a digital medium for easy reproduction and appropriate finish.
Digital Game
Digital games should be presented as closely as possible to the finished product. A vertical slice is acceptable (and probably appropriate) for both the midterm and the final project. To receive full credit for the assignment, the game must completely demonstrate the bulk of gameplay experience and provide at least 5 minutes of entertaining gameplay. These 5 minutes exclude any startup screens, cinematics or non-play experiences. You may choose any game engine and any appropriate game environment. All games must be playable in class and must be accompanied by a demonstration video that clearly indicates the gameplay experience. The demonstration video can be as short as 1 minute.
Here are a few examples to support your understanding:
- A nice dev diary by a student, with similar constraints to you - 3 weeks, one group, high ideas for their roundabout. This is a great example of documentation too - we get the dev and design stages and have nice, clear photography of the game being played.
- The Unfinished Swan: Demonstration Video and vertical slice
- J' Blow's (from Braid) prototypes for other games: Good demonstration of functional prototypes
- Gallery of digital prototypes from my former students
- The experimental gameplay project is a wonderful ongoing exploration in new ways to play (lots of prototypes)
- A wonderful overview of the experimental gameplay project (think Crayon Physics) and rapid prototyping (under 7 days rapid)
- The Global Game Jam has lots of prototpye examples too
Consider visiting the following too:
- A simple eHow on the very basic mechanics of making a board game prototype
- The Board Game Designer's forum (section on prototyping)
- This is a good article on the experience of paper prototyping (your first phase before your game is prototyped for us): http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050913/sigman_01.shtml
- A nice dev diary from David Bowman at Certain Affinity, outlines how they incorporate board game design and paper prototyping into the design of a XBOX 360 game.
