Investigate, Design & Plan

Investigate

• What makes a “good” game enjoyable to play? A good game should be fun and creative without being too extensive or confusing. A good game shouldn’t be too hard and you should be able to get a bit farther each time you play it.
• What makes a “bad” game not enjoyable to play? A bad game can be defined as either too hard or too easy. Also, if it’s in any way anticlimactic, the player would lose interest.


Design


• What type of game are you going to produce? I’m going to produce a platform type game where the character will have to swim, jump and fight through different obstacles.
• What will it look like? My game will vary from different levels as well as different elements that the character has to pass through in order to complete his mission.
• How will the characters be controlled? The “left” and “right” arrows allow the character to move from side to side, the “up” key allows you to jump while the “down” arrow on the keyboard lets you duck. To attack, use the space bar and use “c” to activate any given jetpacks. You can also use “shift” to block and for a jumping flip in the air use a combination of “shift+up”.
• What will be the objective of the game? The objective of this game is simple, to stay alive long enough to collect all the crystals.
• How are you going to test its functionality? To test its functionality, I will conduct several experimental tests as well as ask my classmates to try it out and give feedback.
• How will it be evaluated? It will be evaluated according to completion and attention to details. For example, if at some point it abruptly ends because the character falls down some hole and is unable to climb out, that would affect the quality of the game.
• How long will you need to create it? Give a timeline for its completion. To completely finish this game, I should need about a week give or take a few days for design and time to change and re-do anything if new ideas come to mind.

Plan


• What will you do first? Why? The first thing I’ll do is to try to come up with a design for my game. The different levels and areas that are more difficult than others to ensure the players don’t lose interest.
• How will you insure that you complete the project on time? I will create a timeline and plan out what needs to be done when.
• Who will test beta versions of your game? I will test beta versions of my game and I will most likely just pick one or two people to test it out as well to build upon it.
• Will you incorporate other people’s suggestions into your game’s design? Depending on other people’s suggestions, I will change and re-create my game based on what they tell me.
• How will you decide if you have created a good game or not? After I conduct several trials of the game, I will ask other people to try it out and give me feedback.