Reference no: EM133133222

Prototype Plan and Assets

Your task for Part B of this Assignment is to Document a prototype plan that outlines the overall designs and plans for your game prototype, and Create three artistic assets using the specified software for your game prototype.

Prototype Plan

You should begin working on this assessment when the course commences, with a solid plan for your game prototype, this will help you to create your Pitch more easily.

Remember, this planning document is about making plans for just the game prototype you will develop in Part C, it is not a full game design document, but rather the design of a single level or area intended for your prototype.

This prototype planning document does not have a word count requirement, but
Expect to write more than 1500 words to address all of the criteria outlined further below.
Include lots of images to support your designs and make it easier to understand!
Your planning document should be easy to understand, visualise, and be detailed enough to develop a prototype for your game without any confusion.

The following areas should be addressed in your prototype plan document:
(these will help the marker determine if your scope is too large and therefore difficult, or simply too small, in which they can provide feedback):
High Concept Statement (see lecture 2)
This is similar to the high concept statement provided in your Game Pitch, but now you have a chance to follow up on any feedback and improve it! If you have made any major changes since your pitch (or were requested to change something in your Part A feedback), make sure the high concept statement reflects this.
Once again, try to include as many of the most important details as possible, briefly summarised into a one paragraph high concept statement, including:
The Game Title
The game's story, aesthetics, mechanics and technology. This could include:
Genre (see lecture 1)
Player control such as player viewpoint (and dimension), and game engine used
General Story/Concept and major Characters (see lecture 3)
Important game Mechanics, including the major goal (see lecture 4)
World/Setting (see lecture 5)
Mechanics (see lecture 4)
Every student will have game mechanics to discuss that emphasises exactly how your prototype will function. With the main concepts summarised through the high concept statement, this section requires detailed explanations of your mechanics for the game prototype you will build.

There should be thorough discussions of each of these aspects from the lecture:
Space - This should address the space that the prototype level/scene will be played within, focusing on the dimension, movement, and boundaries. Environment is to be discussed in another section.
Time - This should address any conditions that affect the timing in the prototype level/scene. Discussion should include how time affects actions, gameplay, player control, and setting.
Objects - This should be a comprehensive list of all objects including their usage, purpose and states that will be needed in the prototype level/scene, and can include characters/enemies (lecture 3), props, cameras, lights and other objects.
Actions - This section requires basic actions and possible strategic actions conducted by the player in the prototype level/scene, as well as the keyboard/mouse input required to conduct the actions.
Rules - This section requires the rules of the prototype level/scene: object interaction, action usage, end condition(s) - win, loss, and/or prototype completion, as well as scoring, etc. Include any chance elements here that may create randomness and uncertainty for the player, and/or alter the rules.
Include images/diagrams to help support your descriptions of mechanics.

World / Setting (see lecture 5)
A 3D game will require some sort of world, environment, or setting - even if it is abstract.
Outline the setting for your prototype level/scene. Consider the following when documenting your designs:
Is it indoors, outdoors, more surreal, abstract, etc.? What does it look like?
Does it draw influences from any culture, atmosphere or setting?
What year is it based in? Is it fictional, historical, contemporary, fantasy, etc.?
Include images/diagrams to help support your descriptions.

Level Design (see lecture 5)
It is important that you thoroughly plan the level or contained area/scene that you will develop for your Part C playable game prototype. You must include the following:
Complete level/scene map - Draw a detailed top-down map of your proposed level/scene(s) for the game prototype, to act as a blueprint for the development stage.
You can use software to design your map, or hand draw the map and scan it or take a CLEAR photo
Map must be created by yourself, or you will lose marks.
The map must indicate locations of the following:
Player start location
All Triggers/Events
All Characters/Enemies
All Props and Objects
The optimal Player progression through the map to win / finish the prototype
Discussion about the triggers/events with pseudocode, relating it back to your completed map.
Identify and summarise how each event will be triggered that was indicated on your map.
(for more details about triggers and events, see Part C). Also Discuss:
Are certain actions required by the player to trigger an event?
What is/are the end condition(s)? How does the player win, lose, and/or complete the prototype?

Provide simple pseudocode to design the process of each event.
(Events, Triggers and Pseudocode are first introduced in Lecture 6, but you should view Part C to see the requirements of Events and Triggers in the prototype.)

Asset Creation (10 marks)
It is expected that you can develop your own 2D and 3D art assets that are appropriate for your game prototype. All students are required to develop at least three assets (not just primitive shapes or basic artwork) created by yourself in 2D (materials and/or interface art), and 3D (meshes). When you work on the game prototype development in Part C of this assignment, you will use your three (or more) self-created assets, as well as free downloadable Unity store assets.
The following identifies the specifications for creating your own art assets:
GIMP Asset (see lab 1)
Every student must create at least one 2D asset using GIMP. Appropriate types of assets include:
Materials for surfaces of 3D objects. (May include a Normal Map as seen in lab 1)
Interface elements which will be used to improve the interface visual design.
Save as a .XCF file type AND export to PNG for submission
Blender Assets (see labs 2 and 3)
Every student must create at least two unique 3D assets using Blender. These should be:
Static 3D models/meshes that will be used as props in your prototype scene.
Animated 3D models will not be taught in this course, so choose static objects to model, such as props for your game prototype.
Save as a .blend file type AND export to FBX for submission
Assets created following the lab exercises do not count towards this submission.
To show your competency in these software tools, these three assets should match or surpass the level of detail of assets created in the labs.

Part C: Game Prototype

After thinking of a game concept in Part A, writing a prototype plan, and creating a few assets for Part B, it is time to develop the game prototype. Using your prototype plan and assets, you must now develop a small functional and playable prototype that showcases one scene (that acts as a small area or level) with game mechanics that trigger events, and end condition(s) - win, loss, and/or completion of level/area.

How big should the prototype be?
Your prototype should use one scene in Unity with a few triggers and events to showcase elements of your game idea, with end condition(s) - such as win, loss, and/or prototype completion. Additional scenes are allowed, however focus on perfecting one scene first.
Here are some examples of different prototypes available in the course:
View the selection of previous student prototypes available in the Moodle Assessments section.
Lab 6 and 8 - this is an OK example of a prototype with a nice terrain (lab 6), and triggers and events such as teleports, death and respawn, and a troll trigger that outputs audio (lab 8), however it would require a goal for the player to accomplish, an interface, and end of prototype conditions.
Lecture 8 and 9 example - this is an OK example of a prototype with triggers and events causing characters to respond and output dialogue on the screen interface, however it would require a goal for the player to accomplish with end of prototype conditions.
Lab 9 and 10 - this is a great example of a prototype for this course for a 3D platform game that only moves forward. It has running, jumping, a trigger to open a door, a trigger to increase player speed, a trigger to spawn enemies, collisions to cause death, and events causing enemies to patrol a simple pattern. All it is missing is an end condition, and perhaps number of lives to enforce a lose condition.
Examples of end conditions:
Scores - Roll-a-Ball (lab 5) has a simple solution of counting the number of items collected, and outputting a win message when a certain score is reached. This could be used in many types of games and genres:
Counting the number of enemies killed (using raycasting for shooting, or collisions).
Counting items collected for a game quest (using triggers/collisions).
Counting the checkpoints crossed in a racing game (using triggers).
Timing - Time conditions can be used for both winning and losing conditions.
This could also be used in many types of games and genres. If the player meets the goals within the time limit, you win and complete the level; if not, you lose.
Triggers and Collisions - these could be used to trigger an event that indicates to the player that they have won or completed the prototype, or have died and lost, or perhaps just lost one life and then respawn. This could be used in many types of games and genres (as shown on next page):

Player gets hit by an enemy, and loses a life (using raycasting for shooting, or collisions).
Player touching dangerous object/environment, or even falling off the world, and loses a life (using triggers/collisions).
Reaching a specific point in the scene/map outputs that player has won (using triggers).
It is important to utilise interface elements to output to the player what has occurred - such as scoring updates, life updates, and wining, completion or losing the game.

What are event and triggers?
You will learn more about these in lectures 6 to 10, as well as some labs from 5 to 10.
Essentially, an Event is when something happens that causes a certain piece of code to run.
The event is said to have been triggered by something in the game.

Part C Requirements:
There are a number of requirements that you must adhere to when completing this assessment task:

Art Assets
There are no requirements to develop any more 2D or 3D art assets yourself (this was completed in Part B), but you can if you want, just be aware that these newly created assets will not be marked separately and take additional development time.
Any assets that you create yourself should be placed in the appropriate project folder in Unity.
When sourcing additional assets, you must use the Unity Asset Store, and provide a link to the asset in your brief report. Do not download assets from any other source. Unity has a huge library of over 6000 free premade assets you can import and use, and not limited to just art assets (see Lab 6, Exercise 3 for instructions on importing free assets from the Unity Asset Store).
Unity Store assets sourced online MUST be placed in the "Unity Store Assets" project folder in Unity. This includes Unity's own "Standard Assets".
These assets should be used appropriately within your prototype to flesh out your scene objects.
You cannot download and use pre-built scene assets. Your scenes must be constructed yourself.

Scene(s) & Objects
Begin working on your prototype scene with the Prototype Unity template files (as outlined on page 14 of this document), and the scene called "MainScene". You cannot use a pre-built scene.
Unity can be used to develop a Terrain (see Lab 6 for Unity 3D Terrain).
Primitive objects can be placed in Unity, but may detract from the design, unless arranged into an elaborate scene. You are better off populating the scene with Unity Store Asset objects appropriate for your world/environment.
Prefabs should be created for objects that require multiple instances in the game scene. Place in "Prefabs" folder.
Aim for engaging use of Objects (your own three created assets, plus additional free Unity Store assets) including 3D objects such as the player, props, cameras, light sources and other game objects to create your scene.

Components
Components should be added to your game objects where appropriate, such as:
Animators. Examples: Opening doors, moving platforms, premade animations. Keep it simple.
Rigidbody for objects requiring physics behaviour / physical collisions.
Colliders for objects that can be collided with, and possibly require scripted collision events.
Colliders with triggers for objects to set up a scripted triggerable event.
Materials on objects to distinguish them apart from one another.
And other components such as Audio, Particle System, Camera, and UI components as required.
NOTE: Transform is a required component and is not considered for marking purposes.
NOTE: Mesh Renderer is a required component of a 3D model and is not considered for marking purposes.

Attachment:- Major Assignments.rar