IMGD 1001 Practice Mid-Term Exam Solution

  1. 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 to the comsumer
    
  2. 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.  
  3. 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.
    
  4. 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.
    
  5. 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.
    
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
    
  8. 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.
    
  9. 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.  
  10. 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.
    
  11. 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.
    
  12. 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.
  13. 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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