Summary

This coursework is worth 40% of the overall module assessment and is to be conducted individually.

Design and implement a prototype computer game using Unity that demonstrates     an appropriate progression of challenges for the genre. Provide basic documentation and create a short video trailer that gives an overview of its design. Optionally            participate in the student game competition.

Your game and documentation should be submitted no later than:

3pm Thursday 5th of May 2022

Submission should be made electronically via Moodle (http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk). Standard penalties of 5% per working day will be applied to late submissions.

Your game and video should be submitted as a .zip or .tar.gz file containing a Unity project   folder including all relevant scripts, assets and related files, a .doc, .docx or .pdf file                containing your documentation. Pay close attention to the documents that you are required to submit.

There is a hard limit of 250MB for individual file uploads to Moodle that is outside of my        control, and it is likely that your project will legitimately exceed 250MB. Detailed submission instructions to work around this are on the Moodle page.

Requirements

1 Game Prototype

You should design and implement a game within a genre of your choice, with challenges      appropriate to that genre. Your game must demonstrate the practical implementation of a difficulty curve appropriate to the implemented challenges, ensuring that there is an            appropriate introduction to the mechanics of the challenge, followed by several challenges of increasing difficulty. The core mechanic and style can be chosen as you see fit.

Your game must be implemented in Unity. There is no requirement to use a specific sub- version of Unity although it is recommended to use one of the long-term support (LTS)   versions.

You must submit a complete Unity project including all associated assets and project files, that when opened and “played” starts from where the player might expect the game to    start on first launch.

You must submit a standalone executable for either Windows or OSX. Further details can be found in lab 07.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/PublishingBuilds.html

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/BuildSettingsStandalone.html

The game must be your own work, including the game design and implementation. Any   exceptions to this must be clearly identified and acknowledged as set out in the following sections.

•   You may make use of pre-existing (e.g. found) images, textures, sprites, models and other media, either via the Unity asset store or online, but these must be available  under a license that allows their reuse in this context.

•   You may make use of existing code libraries and script assets within your game, but these must be clearly identified, referenced acknowledged within your project.

•   You may (and it is expected that most will) draw upon the lab exercises, and these do not need to be acknowledged.

2 Supporting Documentation

Your documentation must consist of three elements included in the top-level directory of your submission archive, as follows. There are no formatting or length requirements aside from those stated.

Asset Manifest

A file listing external or third-party assets that you have used as part of your prototype, e.g. images, textures, sprites, models and scripts. This list must include direct links to where       each of the assets used can be retrieved.

Important: if you do not include this file then your coursework will not be marked, and you will receive a mark of 0 for the coursework. If this file is inaccurate or incomplete, then your coursework will be investigated as potentially having engaged in plagiarism1 .

Prototype Instructions

A set of instructions or a walkthrough describing one way of successfully completing your  prototype. NB – this is not just a restatement of the game design in the abstract, instead    describe the player’s experience, that is, an instance of playing through the game, in a way that could be used for a walkthrough or tutorial for the game. This should explain what to  do and when, and the controls for playing the game.

Prototype Trailer

A short video that highlights the key features of your game. The video must be no longer than 1 minute.

You should capture footage from each game using a screen capture tool. The video should   be encoded and submitted as H264 video in an .MP4 wrapper, or alternatively you may host the video on an online video platform and submit a link.

Hints

Your game should allow the player to play towards a clearly defined objective, comprising of representative applied challenges, for example, exploration, pattern recognition, knowledge etc. The game should be appropriately balanced and demonstrate an appreciation of the       concept of progression and increasing difficulty and challenge.

A rule of thumb is that your game should take around 10 minutes to play.

The emphasis of this coursework is about thinking about structured game play, and               demonstrating your understanding of the course material, so try not to get too bogged        down designing assets and sprites - you’ll get more marks for a simple looking game that     has a well thought out game design than for an aesthetically beautiful game that is shallow.

You’re encouraged to use the simple games from the lab sessions as a starting point – it is a risky strategy to attempt to implement a game mechanic from scratch that you have yet to explore in Unity – however it is expected that these are then developed into a much        more sophisticated game by adding multiple further challenges and progression. Coming up with a unique form of game play is very difficult, so you can also draw inspiration from          existing games. However, you should aim that your game is suitably unique, whether this is in terms of core mechanics, premise, challenges or aesthetic.

NB – games that are simple derivations or clones of online Unity tutorials are not                    acceptable, and will be heavily penalized. Similarly, it is not acceptable to submit just one of the lab session exercises without modification. You are being assessed on your                        understanding of the course content, and as such you should specifically attempt to              introduce substantial higher level game design concepts, such as particular sequences of      applied challenges, difficulties and balanced relationships into your game that demonstrate this.

As a starting point you might consider the formal and dramatic elements of game play:

•   What is the core mechanic?

•   What are the goals and objectives, rules, resources and conflict?

o Are there weapons, switches, traps, items or power-ups. What are the sinks and sources for these resources?

o What is the player trying to achieve, and what is stopping them from doing that?

•   What are the challenges and how do they develop?

o What are the different levels, rooms or areas, and how are they linked?

o Do you have easy, medium and hard challenges? How have you quantified the difference between these?