Overview
Your group project this semester is to write a computer game of your choice. You should form teams of 3 or 4 people. (So we should have two groups for this class.) Part of the grade assigned to each of you will be based on the overall submission of the project. Another part of the grade will be based on peer evaluations of each other's effort and contribution to the project.
Schedule
Fri, Feb 10: Form your teams and send me by email the names of people on your team and the game you are planning to work on. For each team, pick a spokesperson and a secretary. The secretary's job will be to keep track of all written documentation and code related to the project. This will be put together on a web page for your project. (This doesn't mean the secretary will do all the writing -- everyone in the group must contribute to that. The secretary's job is to keep everything organized.) The spokesperson will be in charge of reporting to me your team's progress, and also for contacting me about any high level questions. (Although, at any point in the project, any of you can contact me directly if you have questions.)
Fri, Mar 3: Each team must submit a brief (about 3 pages) proposal and design document for your project. This should include an overview of what your game is, the rules and features of the game, and who is going to be doing what. I will give feedback on your design by the next week.
Wed, Apr 5: Prototype. By this date, you should have a basic prototype of the interface and operation of your game. It does not need to do everything yet but it must have achieved a good portion of the eventual product.
Thu, Apr 20: Demonstrations. Your programs be completed and ready for demonstration in class. You should have written documentation in the form of a simple user's manual along with commented source code.
Suggested Games
Below are some possible types of games you may work on. You should not directly copy the idea of any commercial-brand game, due to possible issues with copyright or trademark. You are welcome to propose a different game than any of these.
Keep in mind that you will have about a month to work on the actual programming, so you do not want to pick something too complex. Your game should have some sort of GUI or animated graphics, event handling, scoring system. Where appropriate, it should have at least 2-player mode with support for a computer player. Even a simple game by today's standards can be fun when you know that you've programmed it.
- Minigolf
- Word games, like Boggle or Scrabble
- Pong
- Asteroids (spaceship flying around shooting things)
- Pacman
- Snake (like Ambrosia Software's Slithereens)
- Battleship-like game
Grading Breakdown
- 25 pts - Prototype
- 50 pts - Peer evaluations
- 25 pts - User's manual and other documentation
- 100 pts - Final code
Peer Evaluations
At the completion of the project, I will ask all of you to fill in the following forms for each of the partners in your group: Peer evaluations
