Main
About: Schedule Staff FAQ News Materials: Sessions Discussion Engine Reading Writing Style Project: Assignments Groups Requirements Showcase Resources: Code Samples C++ Online Piazza GitHub GameDevNet Submissions: CMS CATME |
Assignment 6
|
Verb | Input | Limitation | Outcome | Importance |
---|---|---|---|---|
Grapple | Click mouse on surface or object | Requires an unobstructed line between character and target (which is in range) | The character now has a rope connecting him to the target. If the rope was previously attached to another object, it is released. | Critical |
Climb | Press up or down arrows | Requires a connection to an immovable surface | The character moves up or down along the rope as appropriate. | Critical |
Swing | Press left or right arrows | Requires a connection to an immovable surface | The character swings back and forth in an arc on the attached rope. | Critical |
Release | Press space bar | Requires a connection to a surface or object | The rope disappears and the character can move freely. | Desirable |
Walk | Press left or right arrows | Requires that the rope is not connected to anything | The character moves left or right along the ground. | Desirable |
Pull | Press down arrow | Requires a connection to an movable object | The object is pulled towards the character, according the rules of the physics engine. | Valuable |
Note that we do not have a verb for jump. That is because a rope makes jumping redundant. In fact, we have even said that walking is simply desirable, but not critical. If we can swing on the rope, then it is possible to move without walking if we really had to; the game would feel like a Spiderman game in that case.
The verb pull is another interesting challenge. We do want to make pulling objects towards us the a key part of the game. However, it is unclear whether it is a distinct action from climb. There is a possibility that we might want to distinguish these actions via interations, but have the basic action the same. For example, the actual verb might be retract. If the rope is attached to an anchored object, this pulls the character towards the anchor; on the other hand, if it is attached to an unanchored object, retracting the rope pulls it towards the player.
How do we know whether we want to separate climb and pull? The answer depends on whether we want to be able to climb up when attached to unsecured objects. If so, they must be separate verbs; otherwise, we can replace them both with retract. We are unsure of which choice we want to make yet, so pull is listed as valuable, but not desirable or critical.
If you do make a table like the one above, please be sure to follow the writing guidelines for tables. Each column is essentially a bulleted list and should therefore have a uniform presentation. This means everything in a column should either be a complete sentence or have the same part of speech.
We have talked about interactions quite a bit in this class. Interactions are not controlled (directly) by player input. Instead, interactions are a response to a triggering event, such as a collision, a line-of-sight detection, or a resource being acquired.
We want you to list all of the interactions that you know of so far; unlike actions, it is relatively easy to keep adding interactions as you work on your game. Indeed, as you add challenges, you might be tempted to add new interactions. Though you should avoid this, as interaction bloat is almost as bad as verb bloat.
For each interaction, answer the following question:
Again, discuss each of these below.
The trigger event is just some game state that causes the interaction to happen. This is very similar to input for actions, except that it is not something as simple as a button. Examples of interactions include collisions, proximity, line-of-sight, having too many or too few resources, and so on. You do not need to be too formal here; simply describe the basic event.
As with your actions, you should be as precised as possible. What is the immediate outcome of the interaction (e.g. next animation frame)? Is the effect a change in character state like mushrooms that makes Mario small? Or is a change in the character's position?
Avoid trying to guess what happens several animation frames in the future. Those outcomes will be the result of other interactions. For example, Mario growing large again after the mushroom wears off is a separate interaction from growing small.
Interactions are hard to control. You do not press a button to cause an interaction. You have to be in the proper state. Is there anything that the players can do to put themselves in this state? If it is a collision, can they move their character to cause the collision? If it is a matter of resources, what can they do to gain or lose resources. This is often the trickiest part of the specification to write, and it is okay if it is less formal than the other parts of this document.
This is the same as it was for the actions. However, interactions are more likely to change than actions are. Therefore you will have very few critical interactions. On the other hand, collisions are always important, and line-of-sight is critical to stealth games. Again, be very honest about how important you think your interactions are.
It is still a bit early to know all of your challenges. However, if you have some challenges already, this is going to make your gameplay prototype much, much easier. We want you to have several sample challenges in your game. For each challenge, mention the following:
This information is harder to represent in table format. We recommend that you list each challenge as a subheading with a short, one-paragraph description underneath. After this paragraph, answer the three questions above in either bullet (if short) or topic paragraph (if longer) form.
For the last question (skill, uncertainty, or risk), remember the lessons from class. If it is a skill-based challenge, what skill does it use? It is a timing challenge or a hand-eye coordination challenge? Puzzle challenges that do not involve hidden information are also a skill-based challenge. If there is hidden information involved, we show know that. Finally, let us know if there is a random element that makes the player outcome somewhat unpredictable. You do not need to be too formal here; just answer the question the best you can.
This is document that has undergone a lot of changes over the years. We are constantly working on improving it. Some of the examples here still confuse the outcome of a verb with the results of combining a verb and interaction (which is why the verbs in these documents have multiple outcomes). Several of them violate the writing guidelines (this document is notorious for the worst violations of the writing guidelines).
In addition, we made a major change with the mechanics section in recent years). We used to have two sections on actions: one where you described the actions informal and listed their importance, and one where you listed them formally. This completely confused students, so we decided to merge the sections. Some of the older documents (pre-2017) do not have this format. Take that into account when looking at these examples.
You have seen both the concept document and the nondigital prototype for the 2019 break-out mobile hit Family Style. Now it is time to look at their gameplay specification. Note the amount of detail that went into specify collisions, which is a large portion of their gameplay. Compare this document with their actual nondigital prototype.
The most polished mobile game at the 2019 Showcase was Pig Life Crisis. It was a very professional looking puzzle game that showed what you could (visually) do with the CUGL engine. The had extremely simple and streamlined mechanics as you can see in this document. Not all gameplay specifications need to be an exhaustive list of possibilities.
One more game from 2019, the mobile game Cluck Cluck Moose was effectively a card game, where the chickens had card-like mechanics. Because each chicken had its own unique set of mechanics, they had to have a separate section covering all the chicken types and what they did. Notice that this goes in the Interactions section. Playing a card is an action, but the effect of the card on the board is an interaction. All card-like games should model their gameplay specification after this approach.
The puzzle game Split was the most polished mobile game at the 2018 Showcase. Again the mechanics are very straight-foward. But the tables are nice and they have some simple illustrations to show off the gestures for the various actions.
The puzzle/strategy game Arcane Tectonics was the most innovative mobile game at the 2018 Showcase. Unlike all of the other examples, they do not use tables. They break their mechanics into sections with topic paragraphs. This is a perfectly fine approach; you do not have to use tables. But please use complete sentences if this is how you wish to present your mechanics.
The game Cannon was an audience favorite in the 2017 Showcase. Like Split they make use of illustrations in their tables. This time the illustration is in their Interactions table, showing off the various collision types. While not required, this was very informative.
We used the 2014 game Over the Arctic Hills as one of the examples for the nondigital prototype. It is interesting to compare this document to that prototype. The tables in this document do an excellent job of adhering to ourwriting guidelines for tables. However, this is not a modern document and you should not structure your document like this one (with actions in two different places).
Due: Saturday, February 22nd at 11:59 pm
You should submit a PDF file called gameplay. Again, we ask that the file be a PDF so that we can annotate it in order to return it to you with feedback for possible revision. It is fine if you create the document in a program like Microsoft Word, but you should convert it to PDF before submission.
We expect this document to be longer than the concept document. While most good concept documents are 2-3 pages without the player mode diagram, this document should be 3-5 pages and can even grow as large as 6 pages if necessary. We are looking for detail this time.