Assignment 4: Game Proposal (5 pts)Marketing Research and Data Analysis
1. Submission and Interview Instructions
• Submit it as a PDF with the naming format as follows:
LabNumber_FirstName_LastName_Assignment4_Proposal_StudentNumber.pdf , e.g.
E101_John_Smith_Assignment4_ Proposal_1234567.pdf, and then upload it to the Canvas
before or by the deadline.
• Before the deadline, you are allowed to resubmit if you feel necessary, and the last one
submitted will be graded.
(Please note, -0.25 will be deducted for each violation of the rules specified above)
• No late submission will be accepted. If you do not complete the assignment by the deadline,
you will receive 0. You will also receive 0 for missing sketch or folder.
• For a legitimate reason a late submission might be allowed pending discussion with your TA
before the deadline. You may be required to provide supporting documents.
2. Overview (What should you do)
You are to propose a game that will fulfill all the design and programming
requirements as specified in the Assignment 4 General Guidelines. Your proposal
should detail EXACTLY how you will build your game including description of
mechanics and gameplay design, a storyboard to demonstrate gameplay
scenarios, an UML diagram to show classes and their relationships, and the
estimated timeline of progression and completion.
The purpose of your proposal will be to develop a description of your game concept and
how it will meet the requirements (Please note we have some specific requirements if
you choose to do whacking or shooter genre of game. Please refer to the general
guideline for detail). As a general document that provides guidelines for future design
refinement and implementation, your proposal should consider all the requirements and
their implementation.
Please be advised that as an initial design doc, it doesn’t have to be perfect, as it’s a
normal process to refine and tweak it along the way of its design and implementation,
with feedbacks from users and your own testing. However, it must meet the following
requirements.
3. Proposal Requirements
Write a clear and cohesive description of your game design, which should include:
1. A game title, and an overview of the game concepts (aka game idea) and the
genre (platformer, action, adventure, RPG, shooter, simulation, strategy etc.)
that the game falls into
2. What types of Fun (as per Marc Leblanc’s 8 types of Funs – as are covered in
week 9 lecture) the game would provide to the target audience
3. System design that includes core mechanics and gameplay, and a storyline
that provide context for the game. These should be designed in a way that
supports the targeted funs. Specifically:
• Mechanics: what can the player do in the game world? What are the basic
player actions and what are their effects? (e.g., the player can jump, shoot.
The player can talk to NPCs. The player can click on objects to discover
secrets that are hidden within them. The player can enter text into a dialog
box to answer puzzles. The player can use the mouse to draw shapes that
turn into attacks, and so on).
• Goal: what, ultimately, is the player’s objective? (to destroy all the enemies?
to find all the objects? to get to the end of the level? To solve the puzzle? Just
to explore and enjoy the environment? To get to the end of the story?)
• What causes the game to end? (player win/lose?): specify the win/lose
conditions. e.g., game ends when all the enemies killed; when all the puzzles
solved; lose when time runs out; health goes to 0; game only ends when
player chooses to (i.e., “infinite play” type game), and so on
• Provide a storyboard to demonstrate the typical gameplay scenarios (you
can sketch it out on paper and scan to include it in your proposal)
4. Interaction design that discusses control devices (mouse or keyboard, what
buttons or keys are for what actions) and feedback elements (scores, lives,
health …) shown to the player with HUD
5. Motivation design that specifies what rewards (including at least scores, health
pack and power-ups) would you provide to motivate and engage the player
6. Narrative design: provide a background story for your game to provide context
for what the character is trying to do and why she is doing it
7. Difficulty scaling: how will you “scale up” the challenge to keep the player
engaged? (E.g., enemies get new abilities; the environment changes, making the
items harder to find; the controls change, making it harder to manipulate objects
etc.)
8. A tentative UML diagram to show your program architecture with classes (name,
fields:type, methods with parameters if any and return type) and their relationship
(inheritance and aggregation). (Hint: a) as a tentative UML diagram, it doesn’t
have to be perfect yet in terms of class structure. b) However it must follow the
correct notations to draw as demonstrated in the lecture/lab examples, need to
have class name, fields, methods, indication of inheritance relationship and
containment (aka aggregation) relationship. c) You can use Violet UML Editor to
draw and use the camera button to copy & paste it to your proposal document)
9. Feature break-downs and prioritization of their implementation order (i.e.
which of the features would go 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. in terms of your implementation)
10. Proposed timeline for implementing each of these features (i.e. by what week
what feature(s) would be completed. Please note this is your own estimation for
timeline; we’ll guide you with periodic milestones to help you achieve the final
deliverable. Take it as an exercise as it’s a crucial skill when you do your own
project in the future)
4. Resources for Game Ideas
• The Best Indie Games You May Have Missed in 2021 | WIRED
• Best Indie Games of 2020 (gamingbolt.com)
• The Best Indie Games Of GDC 2019
• The Best Indie Games Of GDC 2018
• The Best Indie Games Of GDC 2017
• The Best Indie Games of GDC 2016
• Quotes
• Stories
• Indie Games
• More Indie Games
• Even More Indie Games