Final Project
Summary
The outcome of the project is an original game that explores themes shared by our partners at Minnetrista. Special emphasis is placed on interactive narrative games that take place on the Minnetrista grounds.
Pitches and Statements of Commitment
Each student will prepare two separate concept documents and short pitch presentations. The concept documents will follow Tim Ryan's format. Be sure to address the association with Minnetrista themes as a key feature, potentially articulated as an anticipated learning outcome of the game.
After the pitches, each student will prepare a finalized concept document and give a Statement of Commitment presentation in class. This commits you to the concept that you will pursue as your final project. To facilitate the scheduling of presentations, students will be divided into two groups, cleverly named “Group A” and “Group B”.
Refer to the course schedule for the dates and deadlines of these activities.
Status Reports
Each student will give a sequence of status reports, following the course schedule. The primary goal of the status report is to share with the class your progress in the protototyping process.
Prototypes exist to to be tested, to be learned from, and then to be thrown away (or archived). For our purposes, we will distinguish between three kinds of prototype testing:
- Internal testing
- This is the testing you yourself conduct, running through the gameplay in order to ensure that everything is working as you expect. While internal testing is often done with lightweight paper prototypes, it can also be done with other tools such as spreadsheets and prototyping software.
- External (inauthentic) testing
- This is testing with other players who are not in your target demographic. Many of us are designing for an audience to whom we do not have immediate access, but it is still worth external testing to ensure that systems are working as intended.
- Authentic testing
- This is what we call the testing that is done with players in your target demographic. This is the most important form of testing, once your core systems are stable and teachable.
When you present a status report, you are expected to address the following at minimum:
- What was your design question?
- What kind of evaluation did you conduct?
- What evidence did you gather?
- What conclusions do you draw from the evaluation?
Final Delivery
The outcome and manifestation of your work needs to be something that can be delivered to our community partners. For analog games, this would ideally include the resources necessary to reproduce the prototype, such as the source files used to create a print-and-play version of the game. Details on submitting your final prototype will be provided on Canvas.
Each submission needs to include a designer's statement that contextualizes the work within the course goals and community partner desires.
Evaluation
Refer to the main course page for details and philosophy of grading. You will continue to earn participation credit during each presentation day by actively engaging with your peers' work. Each status report and practice presentation will contribute equally to your production score. The final presentation and final submission will be evaluated as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, with a satisfactory grade in both required to earn any production credit.
Tips
Game design is a creative activity, and sometimes it is not clear where to start. Many game designers have written about how there is no one right way to start: you can start with a theme, a rule or system, an interesting component, a story, an aesthetic, or somewhere else. I believe the most important thing is to move quickly from inspiration to a very light prototype—something that you can tinker with.
Practically every game can trace its roots back to other games. If you are feeling completely stuck, try playing something new! Write a critical analysis of a game to make sure you understand how the various parts are working together to produce the play experience.