Interactive Media & Game Development
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

IMGD
IMGD-3000/3500: Technical/Artistic Game Development I
Final Project
Presentations: March 4 & 5, 2010.

Objective: For the final project in this course, you will build a complete game using the C4 Game Engine from Terathon Software. IMGD-3000 focuses on the technical aspects of game development, and IMGD-3500 focuses on the artistic aspects. Therefore, it is the duty of the 3000 students to make sure the result plays well with respect to the stated technical aspects, and of the 3500 students that it looks good with respect to the stated artistic goals you will outline.

This project must be done in the teams you made for the course. Both the scope and compressed timeline (only five weeks!) of this project require that the project be done in teams.

The desired outcomes of this project are as follows:

  • To go through the process of developing a game of significant size
  • To gain experience with a sizable game engine codebase (tech)
  • To gain experience in creating a significant number of art assets for a game (art)
  • To gain experience in team-based development
  • To determine and follow a timeline of milestones that must be met to complete a project of this size on time
  • To get a good idea of what serious game development is all about
  • To have fun!

There will be several, rapid milestones to be met along the way to delivering your working product. These are listed below.


Timeline: The timeline for significant milestones of the project is as follows:
  1. Jan. 20 (Wed): Project teams formed
  2. Jan. 27 (Wed): Team brainstorming session
  3. Feb. 05 (Fri): Project summary ideas due (Example: PDF, Word)
  4. Feb. 08 (Mon): Project approved
  5. Feb. 12 (Fri): Detailed Game Plan due (Example: PDF, Word) (A more-detailed example from IMGD-1001: PDF)
    In addition, see this list of other items.
  6. Feb. 12 (Fri): SourceForge Project set up
  7. Feb. 12 (Fri): Web page set up to show your progress
  8. Feb. 19 (Fri): Milestone 1: Progress presented in class
  9. Feb. 22 (Mon): Milestone 2: Initial alpha presented in class
  10. Feb. 22 (Mon): Begin internal testing of implemented parts. Build, build, build!
  11. Feb. 24 (Wed): Progress presentation in class
  12. Feb. 25 (Thu): Milestone 3: Playable game beta presented in class
  13. Mar. 01 (Mon): Milestone 4: "Feature-complete" game, all major functionality in place. No new ideas! Time to finish up and test, test, test!
  14. Mar. 03 (Wed): Game complete. Go home and get some sleep before launch day.
  15. Mar. 04 (Thu): Final Prototype Presentations
  16. Mar. 05 (Fri): Final Prototype Presentations


Final Prototypes: We were fortunate to have five "judges" from the game development community come to the final presentations, and rate the performance of the groups on various criteria. The judges were Darius Kazemi, President and Gadfly, Orbus Gameworks, Ichiro Lambe, President, Dejobaan Games, Brian Moriarty, Professor of Practice, WPI IMGD Program, Kent Quirk, Linden Lab, Jesse Smith, Designer, 38 Studios. The judges will play the role of Publishers, evaluating each team's presentation, and distributing funding at their own discrection (okay, so there wasn't any real money, but maybe someday someone will sponsor this event!).

Students will also rate each other's games, and vote for the best in several categories.

Keep in mind that the teams only had about 5 weeks to go from idea to prototype.

FINAL PROJECTS
**THURSDAY PRESENTATIONS**

Jailbait

The mining company sent you to investigate one of their sites that they suddenly lost contact with. Upon arriving you find that the mine has been overrun with wild creatures that will gladly slaughter you in a second. You're guessing that the people who used to work here is that red stuff all over the walls, for some reason this makes you want to leave. In order to get past the monsters you will need to use them against eachother, kind of like rock, paper, scissors, except mouse, rhino, bear, and the bear never loses...

Team: Jagerbomb Studios

Members:
Rob Banahan (Art)
Riley Brown (Art)
Sean Crepeau (Art)
Jackson Fields (Tech)
Karl Gibson (Tech)
Philip Tang (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (260MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Orbit Manifold

Orbit Manifold challenges the players orientation and spatial reasoning with a fresh mechanic and a striking aesthetic. Activate panels that rotate your world. Stay focused, see the signs, solve the puzzles, avoid the traps, find the exit cube, get out. Don't forget your teddy bear.

Team: The Rise and Fall of Man

Members:
Joshua Ginsburg (Art)
Stefan Gusti (Art)
Thomas Liu (Tech)
Morgan Quirk (Tech)
Andrew Tremblay (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (198MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Quest for Jaeger IIV

The player is trapped in a facility where he finds a gun capable of picking up special panels. These panels can be used to fix circuits in the maze and power up various items. Using the gun, the player can set the input colors to the circuits so as to match the required outputs. As the player progresses through the various puzzles, he will receive new colors and panel types, allowing him to solve more difficult puzzles. The end goal is to escape the facility.

Team: DEAK

Members:
Robert Banahan (Art)
Elliot Borenstein (Tech)
Riley Brown (Art)
Sean Crepeau (Art)
Adam Pastorello (Tech)
Doug Turcotte (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (37MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Bag of Holding

The player must guide Hedi through a randomly-generated maze, collecting items from puzzles and ghoulies to solve increasingly difficult puzzles as he descends through the dungeon in search of treasure. The connections between puzzles and the items required to solve them may not be immediately apparent, requiring a combination of logical and creative thought from the player in order to succeed.

Team: PSEUDONYN

Members:
Jared Hays (Tech)
Matthew Ivory (Art)
Elizabeth Labelle (Tech)
Charles Murphy (Art)
Calvin Yoon (Art)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (54MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game
Long ReadMe for playing the game

Vanishing Point

You find yourself running from a horde of aliens you only wish to make dinner out of you. The only forces on your side is your will to survive and your own fear. Reach the end of the space passage and overcome the Vanishing Point.

Team: Team When It's Ready

Members:
Gage Fleischer (Tech)
Joshua Ginsburg (Art)
Stefan Giusti (Art)
Dylan James (Tech)
Matt Lyon (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (76MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

**FRIDAY PRESENTATIONS**

The A-MAZE-ing Light of Truth

The A-MAZE-ing Light of Truth is a 3D flashlight adventure in which the goal is to gather gold from a labyrinthine cave as fast as you can while avoiding frightening ancient cat ghosts! The player character, Hedi, enters the maze in one corner, gathers gold, then returns to the entrance to leave again. The player then receives a score based on how much gold he or she collected and how much time he or she took. The player can use a high-tech color-changing flashlight to reveal hidden items and passages and to fill the illuminated space with a swimmable aether while traversing the cave.

Team: Thundercats

Members:
David Becroft (Tech)
Elliot Brodzki (Tech)
Adrian Mejia (Tech)
Sam Rogers (Art)
Alfreda Smith (Art)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (65MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Space Junkyard

Space Junkyard is a multiplayer cooperative puzzle where each person can play as one of three characters that each has unique abilities. The players are stuck on an alien's space station and will have to find their way to the escape pod. The puzzle will get increasingly harder and require the players to cooperate and use all of the characters' different abilities to reach the goal.

Team: Watt Bodies

Members:
Joseph Daly Chipman (Art)
Chris Chung (Art)
David Corliss (Art)
Khoa DoBa (Tech)
Kyle Sarnik (Tech)
Christopher Williams (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (145MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Jager of the Hill

This game takes on all of the functionality and gameplay of the original Jaeger. The new addition to the game is multiple players. While the first player to log into the game still takes on the role of Hedi, any supplementary players will become Ghoulies. The player in the role of Hedi has to obtain as much gold as they can in the allotted time of the game. However, the other players will attempt to stop him/her. If the Hedi player is attacked by a Ghoulie player and is unable to hold him/her off, the Ghoulie player and the Hedi player switch roles. The other player now has the opportunity to get as much gold as they can in the remaining time. The player with the most gold at the end of the game wins.

Team: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Members:
Ryan Cassidy (Tech)
Francis Collins (Tech)
Samuel Rogers (Art)
Alfreda Smith (Art)
Samuel Song (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (145MB) <<<

ReadMe for playing the game

Dungeons of Passion

Dungeons of Passion is a cooperative team based shooter where players will have to protect the last TV in existence. They will have to defend their base against waves of enemies that will get progressively harder. In between rushes, the players will leave the base and explore the level to find the turrets they need to defend for as long as possible.

Team: We're Going Last

Members:
Joey Chipman (Art)
Chris Chung (Art)
David Corliss (Art)
Craig Jordan (Tech)
Paul Ksiazek (Tech)
Dan Mitchell (Tech)

Game Website

>>> DOWNLOAD THE GAME (34MB) <<<

RawShark: The Game

You are a walking, grappling, uncooked shark named Raw Shark (abbreviated to RS throughout this document). You despise The Cat God (TCG) the one being more evil than you. To defeat the giant TCG you must navigate through a perilous series of caverns using your trusty grappling hook in an attempt to reach the top of the caverns. Having reached the apex of the great cave, you meet your enemy in finned combat. Armed only with your rocket launcher/axe/grappling hook you must defeat the enemy god and take your rightful place as the most evil being in the land.

Team: SpongeBrian

Members:
John Andrews (Tech)
Jennifer Hunt (Tech)
Kevin McManus (Tech)
Calvin Yoon (Art)

Game Website

Documentation: In order to make sure you gain experience with modern development and team-based tools, you must use WPI's SourceForge for this project. Each team should, therefore, create a new project, and add all the team members, in addition to both instructors and TAs, as administrators.

You must create adequate documentation, both internal and external, along with your assignment. The best way to produce internal documentation is by including inline comments. The preferred way to do this is to write the comments as you code. Get in the habit of writing comments as you type in your code. A good rule of thumb is that all code that does something non-trivial should have comments describing what you are doing. This is as much for others who might have to maintain your code, as for you (imagine you have to go back and maintain code you have not looked at for six months -- this WILL happen to you in the future!).

Create external documentation for your program and submit it along with the project. The documentation does not have to be unnecessarily long, but should explain briefly what each part of your program does, and how your filenames tie in.

NOTE: For this project, you must also include a document stating what each person on your team did towards completing the project. This can be as simple as a list of deliverables, placing names next to each one. Or it can be more precise. If you feel you would like to express your views individually, send an email to the instructors.


What to
Turn in:		 Submit everything you need to run your program (source files, data files, etc.)

The command to archive everything, assuming your code is in a directory "final", is:

zip -r TeamName_final.zip final

Place this file in your SourceForge space, and label it as such.


Useful Links: Here are some links to the final projects from previous offerings:

Here is a list of some ideas that might help you when working in groups:


Academic
Honesty:		 Remember the policy on Academic Honesty: You may discuss the assignment with others, but you are to do your own work. The official WPI statement for Academic Honesty can be accessed HERE.