This is the fourth project that your team will complete in working towards creating a videogame prototype. This project focuses on assembling example levels and arranging your game objects inside them. The result of this assignment will be your completed prototype. For this assignment you will not focus on developing any systems-level code or making art assets, you will instead be continuing your use of Game Maker as a development platform upon which you will script your game's logic.

The most inspired game design is for naught if that design is not carried through to completion. The most beautiful artwork is just eye-candy if there is no interesting gameplay behind it. The most impressive AI is merely clever if that AI does not result in an enjoyable game. Ultimately, a game needs skilled level designers to draw these disparate resources together to achieve balance (gameplay and player) to create an enjoyable experience.

The purpose of this project is to develop a final prototype for your game. In previous projects, you have created your game conceptualization, your game design, your artwork, and your game logic. Now you must bring it all together, do the necessary balancing and tweaking, and come up with a prototype that shows the potential of your game.

For this project, you will complete the prototype of your game using the Game Maker software. As the purpose of your prototype is to give people an impression of how your game will play, you should construct enough Game Maker rooms as it takes to show off the objects and interactions that you have created so far. In addition to rooms containing representative gameplay, your final prototype must also include a title, your options, and credits. As before, you will be required to submit a README describing your prototype.

The final form that your prototype takes will be highly dependant on your original design, but in all cases the prototype must be playable. Your prototype will be evaluated based on how well you integrate and utilize the artwork and game objects that you have from projects 3 and 4 to meet your vision from project 2. Use as many or as few Game Maker rooms as it takes to represent the gameplay experience you wish to achieve using the objects that you have created so far. Perhaps a prototype of a strategy game would only require the use of one battlefield to get the point across, where perhaps a puzzle game would require a sequence of several puzzles to indicate the possibilities.

In addition to these example rooms, you are also required to create title, options, and credit screens for your prototype. The title screen should at least include the name of your game, perhaps specifying that this is a "prototype" or "demo". The options feature should enable players to select the options chosen in project 4. The credits screen should at least list all members of your team, and may provide other information such as version number. It should also include other art credits as appropriate. There should be basic directions for the game available to the player (either on one of the screens or by the built-in F1 options in Game Maker. Also to be included in the README, discussed below). The exact configuration and use of these screens is up to you, as there are many valid ways of organizing them. For instance, some games display a splash screen of credits at start, followed by the title screen, then options; where other games might have the title screen at start, leading straight into the game, with options accessible in-game, and credits displayed at exit (with prominent contact and purchase information).

Finally, you must include a README (text file) containing the names of your team members, a short description of your game (this can be taken from your game treatment documents, if you'd like, and can be a superset of the 100 word description above), a list of features in the prototype, and instructions for playing your prototype.

In addition, your README should have a brief (200-350 word) description that specifically relates your prototype implementation back to your original treatment (Project 2). Discuss how the core game goals were, in fact, demonstrated by the prototype or how they were not and then briefly why not. If there were significant deviations from the original treatment, this should be called out with brief reasons provided.

If time allows, you may create additional artwork and game objects as needed. Title-screen artwork, or a team logo might be a good addition.

When you are ready to submit, zip everything up into a single archive file. Name the file TeamName_proj5.zip.

You will use the new Web-based "Turnin" facility to submit your work. Information about submitting can be found here:

http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~kfisler/turnin.html.

Choose one of your team members to submit the document.

Your WPI user ID should be used to login, and you should have been emailed a password.
The Turnin assignment ID is proj5.