IMGD 1001 Practice Mid-Term Exam Solution

Describe, in no more than 1-2 sentences each, the role of the Developer, Publisher, Distributer and Retailer in the game development process.

 
Ans: 

Developer - responsible for creating the game, including design,
programming, and artistic content creation.

Publisher - provides financial support for the game.  Responsible
for manufacturing, marketing and customer support, among other
things.

Distributer - manages delivery of finished games from the publisher
to the retailer

Retailer - sells the games

What is level design? Roughly, where does it occur in the game development process.

 
Ans: Level design is the process of creating levels for a game,
using the implemented development tools and gameplay rules, with the
intent of providing interesting gameplay.  Level design occurs in the
latter stages of game development when most of the game coding and
content has been created.

In what ways, in terms of team size and makeup, have game development teams changed over the past 20 years? Why?

Ans: In general, game development teams have grown and
increasingly include artists, designers and even producers in addition
to programmers.  This change has been fueled by the increase in
computer capabilities that have allowed for increasing support for
graphics and music, and also by the market demand for high-impact,
hit-driven games.

Briefly describe why a toy is not a game. How can you make a toy into a game?

Ans: A toy is not a game because it does not provide
any built-in goals.  A toy can become part of a game if goals
are provided by the player.

Name at least two aspects you lose when making a board game into a computer game. Name at least two aspects you gain when making a board game into a computer game.

Ans: Lose many physical aspects of the board game, such as
pieces, dice and cards.  Lose natural social interactions that take
place during board game play.  Gain AI that can handle many simple and
sophisticated game bookwork tasks.  Gain multimedia, including
graphics and sound, that can enhance immersiveness.

What is game theory? Provide one example of how it can be used to inform gameplay or otherwise develop a game.

Ans: Game theory is a branch of economics in which a system,
governed by rules of cost and payoff, is analyzed to determine the
best choice to produce the maximum payoff.  Game theory can be used to
analyze gameplay for dominant choices or even as a basis for a computer
AI.

A simple game features a knight and priest fighting a single opponent at a time. The knight fights in the front with a sword, the hunter in the back with arrows. The priest can either heal the knight or cast a bolt at the opponent. Assume the heal and bolt do the same healing/damage, respectively. If the player is manipulating the priest, why does this simple game not have interesting gameplay? Describe a way to make the gameplay more interesting.
```
Ans: the game is not particularly interesting since although the user
has a choice (bolt or bandaid), the net affect is the same for each
spell.  If the game allowed varied monsters (ie- many small monsters
or a monster with many arms or ...) then the decision of which
spell to use would be more interesting.
```

What is Impermanence as a tool for ensuring interesting choices? Describe how you could use it in a first-person shooter game to make the gameplay more interesting.

Ans: Impermanence is a compensation technique for making
something that is beneficial for the player not last forever.  In a
first-person shooter, this could mean making a grenade launcher with
limited ammunition or an invulnerability shield that only lasts for 30
seconds.

What are Supporting Investments as a tool for ensuring interesting choices? Describe how you could use them in a real-time strategy game to make the gameplay more interesting.

 
Ans: Supporting investments support a secondary goal towards the
game objective.  In a real-time strategy game, a primary goal could be
defeating an enemy and a supporting investment could be armor so the
soldiers (that can defeat the enemy) are tougher.

What is "positive feedback" for a synergistic game relationship? Provide an example.

Ans: a synergistic relationship is one in which multiples
of some item or items is not additive.  "Positive feedback"
is a synergistic relationship where 2+ items are better than
the sum of each item.  An example would be two soldiers that
can guard each others back, thus having better armor than
either alone.

What is player-to-gameplay balance? Why is it important? Provide one way it can be done poorly in a game. Describe one way you can fix the same poorly-done example.

Ans: Player-to-gameplay balance is where the player's relationship to
the game is appropriate for their skill.  This can be done poorly if
an interface is very complicated but full-knowledge of the interface
is needed before the player can even progress past the first level.
This could be fixed by making only some basic parts of the interface
needed at first, requiring (and rewarding) the player to learn
additional components of the interface at later levels.

What are key frames in animation?

Ans: Key frames are the images of a moving object at the extremes of
movement.  For example, for a duck flying, this could be when the
wings are down and up.

When creating an artistic scene, it is often useful to use "broad strokes" in the creation process. What does this mean?

Ans: "Broad strokes" means coarsely capturing the scope or motif
of an artistic endeavor before filling in the details.  For example,
in creating a 3d model of a house, the first broad strokes
could involve creating a flat plane for a yard, using some simple
polygons to represent the house and adding basic colors as textures,
thus providing an initial "feel" for how the scene may work.

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