PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 1

ITGM 705 Visual Interface and Information Design Summer 2010 | Professor David Meyers

© 2010, All Rights Reserved. Intellectual Property of Tim Putt

Non-Digital Game Design

PROJECTB Process Book

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 2

table of contents 3 Project Details5 Proposal6 Project Ideas7 Proposal8 Rough Sketch11 Game Play - Screenshots

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 3

OBJECTIVE

Design and produce a digital interactive game, story, information system, or artwork. The topic and area of exploration is up to you, although it is recommended that you select a topic related to your interests and your intended degree focus.

PROCESS

Part 1: Proposal, Due: End of Unit 6

1. Write a one- or two-page proposal that de-scribes the topic you’ve chosen to investigate and the product you intend to design. Your proposal should articulate the concept, design direction, and significance of your chosen project and must include all of the following elements.

Design Statement: This section should answer the question, “What problem are you trying to solve?”

Audience and Context: This section should define the context in which your project will be consumed and the audience for which you will create it.

Motivation: This section should describe your motivation for choosing the project you’ve selected. It should also describe the motivations that will draw your intended audience to the project.

2. Post your initial project ideas to the appropri-ate Unit 6 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 6.

3. Review the feedback provided by your profes-sor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

4. Submit your final proposal (in RTF format) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 6.

Part 2: Visualization and Conceptualization, Due: End of Unit 7

Begin realizing your project through visualiza-tion and conceptualization. Depending upon the nature of your project, this phase may involve creating any of the following: • storyboards • wireframes • flow diagrams • initial designs

• any other suitable means of giving initial form to your project.

2. Post your initial visualizations (as a single PDF file) to the appropriate Unit 7 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 7.

3. Review the feedback provided by your profes-sor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

4. Submit your final visualizations (as a single PDF file) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 7.

Part 3: Prototype, Due: End of Unit 8

1. Develop a digital prototype for your project. Depending upon the nature of your project, this might take the form of any of the follow-ing:

• a playable game mechanic • a navigable set of wireframes of a Web

site structure • any other “rough” format that will facilitate

user testing.

2. Post your initial prototype to the appropriate Unit 8 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 8.

project details | Final Project, Digital Game

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 4

3. Run at least one test session of your digital prototype. Test it with at least five different people within your target audience. You are encouraged to use a feedback form to help you collect data and focus audience feedback.

4. Given the feedback received, prepare a brief report addressing the key issues raised, key ar-eas of success, and any design decisions to ad-dress key issues. Post this report—along with a copy of the raw feedback collected during testing—to the appropriate Unit 8 discussion forum by Day 5 of Unit 8.

5. Consider feedback provided by your professor and peers, along with the results of user test-ing, and make any desired revisions to your work.

6. Submit your final digital prototype, your raw testing feedback, and your brief user-testing report (as a ZIp package) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 8.

Part 4: Final, Due: End of Unit 9

1. Develop a polished final version of your project.

2. Post a working digital version of your work-in-progress to the appropriate Unit 9 discus-sion forum by Day 3 of Unit 9.

3. Review feedback provided by your professor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

4. Update your proposal to reflect any changes to the original plan, including your rationale for these revisions. Feedback gathered during the testing should be included as well, par-ticularly as it impacted your design decisions.

5. Add description(s) for use or game rules to your original proposal document.

6. Submit your final project and your final proj-ect proposal as a single zipped archive via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 9.

project details | Final Project, Digital Game

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 5

EVAluATIOn CRITERIA

• Your proposal should define a project appropriate in scope for a four-week graduate project.

• Your proposal should speak to an appropriate audience and context for use, given the focus of the project.

• Your revised project proposal should accurately reflect the final state of your project and should logically discuss any major design changes made between the initial proposal and the final product.

• Your proposal should clearly introduce the use and experience of your project to someone who has never encountered the project before.

• Your proposal should be well written and free of grammatical and typographic errors.

• Your final project should be polished and fully realized. This means that, for the purposes of this project, visual design is as important as interactive design.

• Your project should be appropriate to the medium and tools of choice and the experience level of your intended users.

• Your project should be based on interaction model(s) beyond well- known examples.

• Your project should show development and refinement as you move through the production phases.

• Your final project must be interactive and fully functional.

project evaluation | Final Project, Digital Game

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 6

IDEAS

• Spot the differences game - headshot with agency touchups - location with small changes - energy efficient house differences

(Save money game)

• Find the hidden items game - hiking theme - three different scenes with different

animals to spot and add to your nature spotting (catalogue)

• Designer forum to help connect denominational clients with like-faith creative’s

- designer profiles - location for businesses to submit

projects

project ideas | Final Project, Digital Game

Selected Direction

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 7

Design statement The goal is to create a fun game for kids that will teach them to look closer and to look more attentively.

auDience anD content Kids from ages 4 to 14 will enjoy searching for the hidden animals. By using the bin-oculars the game instantly targets the players curiosity. The desire to explore wildlife is fueled in this game, intentionally to get kids interested and excited about what nature has to offer. By using the zooming of the binoc-ulars, the player is drawn into the interface which is simple and intuitive.

motivation Familiarizing children with the great out-doors is the first step to getting them excited about nature and eventually conservation. This game doesn’t go too deep into conserva-tion, but it does teach kids about the pristine beauty of mother nature. To win the game, players must spot every listed animal on the scroll. The list of shapes is an incentive of what to look for next and gives clues as to what they might be.

proposal | Final Project, Digital Game

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 8

rough sketch | Panoramic scene

By creating a panoramic scene one option is to create a seamless transition that could have the viewer continually spin 360˚.

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 9

digital sketch | Panoramic scene, Digital Draft

The background scene doesn’t contain any of the hidden animals as they are inserted in the Flash development process.

Smaller version of the same graphic (used to create the illusion of magnification).

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 10

actionscript 3.0 | Development progress

PROJECTB ITGM 705 Visual Interface & Info Design Spring 2010 Professor David MeyersDigital Game 11

game play | Development progress

Players can explore the landscape with their binoculars.

When a player thinks they may have found an animal or nature arti-fact they can zoom in or navigate left and right to see it more closely.

When the player clicks on an item in the “Nature Search” list it highlights indicating it has been found. The player wins when all the objects have been found.