Part B: Prototype Plan and Assets

Your task for Part B of this Assignment is to

1) Document a prototype plan that outlines the overall designs and plans for your game prototype, and

2) Create three artistic assets using the specified software for your game prototype.

Prototype Plan

A game begins with an idea. At the beginning of the semester, after learning about this assessment, you should have started coming up with ideas for your game prototype that would meet the requirements.

This prototype planning document does not have a word count requirement, but

• Expect to write address all of the criteria outlined further below.

• Include lots of images to support your designs and make it easier to understand!

• Your planning document should be easy to understand, visualise, and be detailed enough that if you were to pass your plans to a completely separate Unity developer, you could expect them to develop a prototype for your game without any confusion.

The following areas should be addressed in your prototype plan document:

1. High Concept Statement

o This is similar to the high concept statement provided in your Game Pitch, but now you have a chance to follow up on any feedback and improve it! If you have made any major changes since your pitch (or were requested to change something in your Part A feedback), make sure the high concept statement reflects this.

o Once again, try to include as many of the most important details as possible, briefly summarised into a one paragraph high concept statement, including:

 The Game Title

• The game’s story, aesthetics, mechanics and technology. This could include:

• Genre

• Player control such as player viewpoint, and game engine used

• General Story/Concept and major Characters

• Important game Mechanics, including the major goal

• World/Setting

2. Mechanics

o Every student will have game mechanics to discuss that emphasises exactly how your prototype will function. With the main concepts summarised through the high concept statement, this section requires detailed explanations of your mechanics for the game prototype you will build.

o There should be thorough discussions of each of these aspects from the lecture:

• Space - This should address the space that the prototype will be played within, focusing on the dimensions, movement, and boundaries. Environment/world are to be discussed in another section.

• Time - This should address any conditions that affect the timing in the prototype. Discussion should include how time affects actions, gameplay, player control, and setting.

• Objects - This should be a comprehensive list of all objects including their usage, purpose and states that will be needed in the prototype, and can include characters/enemies (lecture 3), props, cameras, lights and other objects.

• Actions - Actions refer to the actions conducted by the player, and this section requires basic actions and possible strategic actions, as well as the input required to conduct the actions.

• Rules - Rules of the prototype. Must include rules around object interaction, rules of action usage, end condition(s) - win, loss, and/or prototype completion, as well as scoring, etc. Include any chance elements here that may create randomness and uncertainty for the player, and/or alter the rules.

o Include images/diagrams to help support your descriptions

3. World / Setting

o A 3D game will require some sort of world, environment, or setting – even if it is abstract.

o Outline the setting for your prototype level/scene. Consider the following when documenting your designs:

• Is it indoors, outdoors, more surreal, abstract, etc.? What does it look like?

• Does it draw influences from any culture, atmosphere or setting?

• What year is it based in? Is it fictional, historical, contemporary, fantasy, etc.?

o Include images/diagrams to help support your descriptions.

4. Level Design

o It is important that you thoroughly plan the level or contained area you will develop for your Part C playable game prototype. You must include the following:

o Complete level/scene map – Draw a detailed top-down map of your proposed level/scene(s) for the game prototype, to act as a blueprint for the development stage.

• You can use software to design your map, or hand draw the map and scan it or take a CLEAR photo

• The map must indicate locations of the following:

• Player start location

• All Triggers/Events

• All Characters/Enemies

• All Props and Objects

• The Player progression through the map to win / finish the prototype

o Discussion about the triggers/events with pseudocode, relating it back to your completed map.

• Identify and summarise how each event will be triggered that was indicated on your map.

• (for more details about triggers and events, see Part C). Also Discuss:

• Are certain actions required by the player to trigger an event?

• What is/are the end condition(s)? How does the player win, lose, and/or complete the prototype?

• Provide simple pseudocode to design the process of each event

• (Events, Triggers and Pseudocode are first introduced in Lecture 6, but you should view Part C to see the requirements of Events and Triggers in the prototype.)

Asset Creation

It is expected that you can develop your own 2D and 3D art assets that are appropriate for your game prototype. All students are required to develop at least three assets (not just primitive shapes or basic artwork) created by yourself in 2D (materials and/or interface art), and 3D (meshes). When you work on the game prototype development in Part C of this assignment, you will use your three (or more) self-created assets, as well as free downloadable Unity store assets.

The following identifies the specifications for creating your own art assets:

• GIMP Asset

o Every student must create at least one 2D asset using GIMP. Appropriate types of assets include:

• Materials for surfaces of 3D objects.

• Interface elements which will be used to improve the interface visual design.

• Backgrounds and skyboxes for your prototype scene.

o Save as a .XCF file type AND export to PNG for submission

• Blender Assets (see labs 2 and 3)

o Every student must create at least two unique 3D assets using Blender. These should be:

• Static 3D models/meshes that will be used as props in your prototype scene.

• Animated 3D models will not be taught in this course, so choose static objects to model, such as props for your game prototype.

o Save as a .blend file type AND export to FBX for submission

• To show your competency in these software tools, these three assets should match or surpass the level of detail of assets created in the labs.