5 Final Project

Grade 11 Video Game Design

Final Project

Now it is time.
Here we bring everything we've learned together and make one grand finale to these lessons.

Roles

For this project you first need to find one or two other partners to work with. Make sure you've talked to them and know who will be working on what because there are roles you must fill.

• A Coder
  • This person is in charge of the majority of coding, as the name would imply. They should be whoever feels the most comfortable with the scripts we've written so far.
• An Artist
  • This is whoever is most artistically inclined. They will be in charge of art and animations for the just about everything in the game.
• A Level Designer
  • This is only needed if your game idea is large enough.
  • This person is in charge of creating prefabs, building levels, and stitching together the others work into the final product. This person should also ensure that the plan is being followed and everything that is needed is being made.

Just because you take on a role does not mean you are strictly stuck to it. We do want the majority of coding done by the coder for instance, but it is perfectly fine if another member writes a script or fixes a problem in an existing one.
This does not mean jobs can be a free for all. We still want to be clear on who has what responsiblities.
If you do mix jobs, you should make sure the other members of the group are aware you are doing that work.

Make sure these partners are people you are willing to work with. You must be able take and give constructive critism to / from these partners.

Plans

Unlike the last few projects this should have a larger amount of time allotted for work. Not only does this mean the end result should be more polished but it means we need a stronger plan.
The ideas behind your game are entirely up to you. Your team may decide on the genre, style, story, and anything else you can think up. All of this must be written down.
We need to be planning this out because as the development time of a game grow, the complexity grows exponentially with it. Having a plan does not nullify this but it will help mitigate.

Here are some things that you'd be wise to include in your plan :

• Gameplay
  • What is the main gameplay loop?
    • What keeps a player engaged?
    • What does the player do?
• Code
  • What functionality do you need?
    • Character movement and interaction
    • Score tracking
    • Scene controlling
  • What scripts should have what duties?
    • A script should not try to do too much. This leads to mess and will be hard to work with
    • Make sure to use folders and name things appropriately (typically a detailed name is better than a short name)
• Art and Animation
  • What is the overall style?
    • Pixel art, cartoonish, etc.
    • What is your inspiration? Other games, movies, and the likes that you can draw from?
  • What pieces are needed?
    • Players and enemies
    • Terrain and decorations
    • Backgrounds
• Level Design
  • Are levels ordered logically?
    • Does the difficulty increase smoothly and appropriately
    • What new challenges are introduced

All of these things should be written down and discussed. Using a plan wisely will be guaranteed to save you many headaches.
This is not a quick thing either. Feel free to spend a couple of days working together and discussing this. Look for other games you like and see what you can pull out of them.

Requirements

There are a few more requirements than compared to the last few projects. There aren't many guidelines we can really give for this as it is supposed to be very open-ended.
The genre and style is of course up to your group.

• Write up a full plan following the guide above
• All the art in your game needs to be made by your group
  • Previous projects did not require this as they were done without a group
  • This art needs to follow one consistent theme while still having distinct areas / levels
• The game must follow a coherent goal and lead the player towards the end
  • There must be a fluid increase in difficulty across the whole game
• Write custom code to achieve create new things' gameplay elements
  • You may you any of the scripts from the previous units but must make some brand-new scripts
• Levels must follow a consistent idea and have a visual consistency
• Of course, include an Easter egg hidden somewhere within your game

Set off, plan, and build an amazing game!