Digital Prototype
A digital prototype is one where you create a (simplification of) the final game experience by quickly writing software.
As with the non-digital prototype, the goal of the digital prototype is to quickly gather early feedback on a game design idea. This feedback allows you to rapidly iterate on the design, improving it quickly. While digital prototypes cannot be developed or iterated as quickly as non-digital prototypes, they have the advantage of being interactive, and can more closely approximate the final gameplaying experience.
Like the non-digital prototype, a digital prototype is a kind of design research activity, where the goal is to answer specific questions about your game's design by creating the prototype, and then playing it. As a result, the digital prototyping activity begins by developing these design questions, and then using them to focus the prototype to gather information that can help answer these questions. The goal of the prototype is not to try and develop your entire game in a few short weeks. Instead, the goal is to focus development activity on a few key aspects of the game. If you have significant doubts about some aspect of the design, then some questions should focus on those doubts so you can gather more information, and increase confidence in the design (or modify it based on gameplay experience).
The digital prototype homework assignment has two main parts: Initial Submission, then Final Submission, as described below. These are submitted on two separate days. The Initial Submission occurs about halfway through the digital prototyping period, while the Final Submission occurs at the end of the assignment period. See below for submission details.
For this assignment, you can use any technology, any game engine. You are encouraged to not use this prototype code as a foundation when you start your final project, post-greenlighting.
You can get help from others, but you must have technical understanding and control over the project.
Initial Submission
The initial submission involves recording a short video of your digital prototype development-in-progress. The intent of this deliverable is to ensure you have started to work on your digital prototype, and that you have the technical capability of creating a small interactive game experience.
Using screen recording software such as Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), record a short video of at least 15 seconds in length demonstrating your work-in-progress digital prototype. There is no length limit on these videos, but expect that no more than 2-3 minutes will be watched during grading. This video needs to be uploaded to a video hosting site such as YouTube or Vimeo. The URL to this video will be submitted to a shared spreadsheet (either directly, or via a web form).
The work-in-progress digital prototype must show an “interactive loop”. Specifically, the prototype must:
a. Receive input from the player, and then show something changing on screen as a result of this input. This could be as simple as making your player avatar move.
b. Allow interaction with some game system (i.e., change state of some sort, and make this state change visible to player). This could be as simple as implementing a collection mechanic.
Final Submission
Final submission involves a description of your digital prototype (in the form of a gameplay video), and a description of the evaluaton of this prototype, in the form of a written document.
Description
- What question(s) you were seeking to answer with the prototype
- How did you collect data on people playing prototype (observation, questionnaires, interviews, etc.)
- What answers did you develop to the questions?
That is, you have had people play your digital prototype. How did you collect information from these players? Typically this involves participant observation and then a questionnaire at the end. Based on this information, what kinds of answers did you develop to your design questions? What new questions emerged? Are some of the initial questions no longer relevant? How does the information you collected provide justification for your answers?
The evaluation information is collected together into one document, which is submitted to the shared Google Drive for the class. Submissions may be made as either a Google Doc (preferred) or a PDF. We do not want to see Word, Open Office, Pages, etc.
Grading
Grades for the assignment will be weighted 25% for initial submission, 75% for final submission (20% description, 25% evaluation, 30% overall quality of the digital prototype experience).