This page provides a description of the course project. The project will be the focus of the second half of the semester. The course project is your opportunity to demonstrate that you have met the theoretical and practical learning objectives of the class. This project synthesizes our previous weeks of study.
The process you will follow for developing the game is the same as you read in Game Design Concepts Level 11, which is essentially an expanded version of the cycle described back in Level 2. To summarize, you will work in iterative cycles of designing, implementing, testing, and evaluating, using the evaluation results as feedback into continued design.
This is an individual project. You are encouraged to help each other, but the responsibility for a complete submission lies with the individual.
A successful final project will satisfy all of the following constraints:
It is an entirely analog game such as a board game or card game.
It may be designed for any player count, keeping in mind that you will need to be able to recruit more than one playtesting group.
It may not be a quiz game where answering factual questions is the core mechanism as found in games like Trivial Pursuit.
The project may not rely on roll-and-move as the core mechanism as in games like Chutes and Ladders. Roll-and-move may be incorporated as a secondary system if appropriate to the rest of the design.
You will need to do multiple types of playtesting during the process. Schreiber provides details about these in Game Design Concepts Levels 12, 13, and 14. Read these more than once as you work with your game concept. Level 15 discusses a fourth kind of testing that is used when a project is near completion. It is not required for your process, but if you aspire to be a great game designer, your path is there.
Each project will have a Design Log in Dan Cook’s style that tracks its growth over time. The log gives you a “living” document that grows each time you finish a work session. This approach can make it easier to pick up where you left off when you have several projects going at the same time (as undergraduates tend to have!). The design log itself will be in our shared folder on Google Docs.
You have approximately six weeks to work on the project. The process we have studied gives us all the tools we need, but no two implementations will be the same. You will have the opportunity each week to share your progress with your classmates to solicit their opinions and feedback on your process.
Here is some advice on the kinds of activities you should consider each week.
Week 1: Rapid prototyping. Make your prototypes easy to change. Your goal this week is to nail down your core mechanism. Only solo testing is appropriate.
Week 2: Work on secondary systems that support the core mechanism. Solo play is likely still the only viable method, but you might bring in some sage classmates for early feedback.
Week 3: Analyze your systems and be sure you have a clear core mechanism and some supporting secondary mechanisms. Write down the complete set of rules. By the end of the week, be ready to playtest with other designers.
Week 4: Prepare the rulebook draft. By the end of the week, be ready to playtest with non-designers.
Week 5: Test with non-designers. Refine materials based on this result. Set up and execute blindtesting.
Week 6: Finalize your materials and prepare for your final presentation.
One of your main products will be your game’s rules. Your deliverable is expected to follow the conventions of tabletop games and so should therefore include:
The rules document should be clearly readable as per the usual rules of college composition. While it’s true that the best board game rule books also evoke the theme through their graphic design, managing that process is up to the producer, not the designer, and so it is out of our scope.
The supporting materials consist of everything you designed that supports the game. This might include a board, cards, tokens, tiles, etc.
Your task is to submit digital representations that an independent reader could recreate your game from these materials and your rulebook. Examples of acceptable digital forms include:
All files must be submitted in open file formats. Examples of open file formats include PDF, ODS, ODT, and PNG.
The designer’s statement is your opportunity to reflect on what the game means to you and what you learned during the design process.
You will give a final presentation of your game in the last week of class. Each presenter will be given five minutes to present their work. Rather than using this time to explain your game, consider using the time to demonstrate important experiences that it creates. Plan on using only two or three minutes of your allocated time for this demonstration and using the rest of the time to address questions.
The most important thing to remember is trust the process. There is no magic to making a great game. Every aspiring designer has to make a hundred bad games before they can make a decent one. The point, then, is not to make a great game, but to do the work required to make the game at all. Hence, you will be graded primarily on your commitment to the process.
As explained on the overview page, each student is expected to devote nine hours of serious attention to the course per week. For the final project period, this attention will be focused on the production of final projects. This includes working on your project as well as assisting others with theirs. Each week, you will report how well you met your commitment via Canvas.
To assist in tracking your hours, I strongly recommend including time and attention investments in your design log. That is, for any work session, track when you started and how long it lasted. This will give you valuable feedback for reflecting on how you spend your time.
Participating in class meetings, helping your classmates, and completing Player Logs are legitimate work even though they may not show up on your design log.
Each week, you can earn course credit for your efforts according to the following chart. These are summed to form your Commitment grade.
| Hours | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| At least 8 | A (Excellent) |
| At least 7 | B (Good) |
| At least 5 | C (Average) |
| At least 2 | D (Poor) |
| Less than 2 | F (No credit) |
Your Design Log will be assessed weekly as well using triage grading. The sum of these forms your Design Log grade.
You will be assigned to a workshop group, and each group will have scheduled workshopping days. During these days, you bring your prototype to class and work with classmates on your current design problems. Your Workshopping grade is based on meeting the requirements of both presenter and participant.
The Playtesting Requirement is satisfied by completing one or more playtesting sessions and incorporating that feedback into your design process. This needs to be documented in your Design Log. Note that in-class workshops are not playtesting.
Your final project grade will be determined by taking the highest row in the following table for which you satisfy each specification. If you do not satisfy any row, then an F grade is assigned.
| Final Project Grade | Design Log | Commitment | Workshopping | Rules | Supporting Materials | Playtesting Requirement | Designer’s Statement | Final Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | B | B | A | A | Satisfied | A | A |
| B | C | C | C | C | C | Satisfied | C | C |
| C | D | D | C | C | C | Satisfied | D | D |
| D | D | D | D | D | D | Not Satisfied | D | D |
How well balanced should my game be?
Balancing is its own subdiscipline within game design. In fact, the author of Game Design Concepts has another course called Game Balance Concepts if you’re interested in checking that out. Some of that content was also published as a book. The short answer to the question is that you should not worry inordinately about balance. Focus on having a good, solid, well-designed core. If you have that, then balance is always possible.
How visually attractive ought my game to be?
Asset production, like balance, is its own specialization. You should do a reasonable job of presentation given your skills without spending inappropriate amounts of time on asset production. Expect that if you were to commercialize your game, the publisher would invest the time and money to improve the presentation to marketable levels.
May I use other people’s art in my game?
You may use any content for which you have a license. Public domain content can be used freely, but you should still keep track of your sources: unscrupulous netizens may take copyrighted work and incorrectly (and potentially illegally) re-release it under a different license, and you want to keep your bases covered. Note that I have seen significant confusion about “Creative Commons,” which is an organization, not a license. They maintain a family of licenses, and you are responsible for abiding by the license terms.
Where do I find playtesters?
Recall from the reading that we distinguish between four types of playtesting: solo, with designers, with non-designers, and blind. The first two should be straightforward. For non-designers, while the easiest solution is to reach out to your social network, I recommend against this. Using your personal friends as testers is of limited value because their relationship with you will color their responses. A better approach is to reach out to friends-of-friends: ask your friends if they have friends who would test your game. There are also gaming shops in Muncie as well as clubs on- and off-campus where you might find interested people. Finally, for blindtesting, the best approach is likely to ask a classmate to run it for you, using their network of people you don’t know. All of these activities are, of course, legitimate course labor that should be logged.
What if I get bored of my project?
This is actually a good sign! Koster points out in A Theory of Fun for Game Design that it is the destiny of any game to become boring. We derive fun from “figuring out” a game, and once we have done so, it holds less interest. You should be working on your final project to the extent that you get bored with it. This means you can turn your attention to the hard challenges of playtesting, presentation, and tuning.
©2026 Paul Gestwicki. This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.