Your Game Name

High Concept

One-liner (or up to 3 sentences) synopsis that pitches and summarizes your game.

Use one of these techniques:

• Simile - a twist on an existing game - It's Pacman but you can change the maze and attack ghosts!
• Combination - combine 2 existing games - It's Pacman meets Mega Man!
• Primary Action - While avoiding ghosts and other hazards, the player can alter the maze and set traps to eliminate the ghosts.

Genre

Identify the gameplay genre(s) the game belongs to. This may also be mentioned in the High Concept section above.

• Gameplay genre - platformer, puzzle, shooter, sim? Here are three taxonomies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres and http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/A_List_and_Guide_to_Game_Genres and http://www.ferzkopp.net/...
• IGN genres: Action, Adventure, Battle, Board, Card, Casino, Compilation, Educational, Fighting, Flight, Hunting, Music, Other, Pinball, Platformer, Party, Productivity, Puzzle, RPG, Racing, Shooter, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia, Virtual Pet, and Wrestling.
• Apple App Store genres: Action, Adventure, Arcade, Board, Card, Casino, Dice, Educational, Family, Music, Puzzle, Racing, Role Playing, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia, and Word.
• Additional descriptors: avoidance, chainreaction, defense, escape, exploration, hackandslash, match-3, onemorelevel or "push your luck" game? This list of tags at https://jayisgames.com/tags/ might be helpful.

Platform

Either desktop only, mobile only, or "mobile-friendly" (i.e. like Bubbles, works on both).

Story

Some games are purely abstract and have no story or theme (ex. Tetris).

But most games at least have a premise to define the action (ex. Your avatar is running from ghosts in a maze).

For your proposed game, discuss the theme (big ideas - if applicable), mood (excitement, fear, ?), narrative (how the player progresses through the game), and premise of the game (what drives the plot).

Also discuss player motivation. Give a short summary of what the player is trying to accomplish in the game. Some of this will be recycled from the High Concept section above.

Esthetics

Graphics style - abstract, cartoonish, photo-realistic?.

Sound - probably pretty simple - 8-bit, ambient, techno, looped, procedural?

Discuss the types of sound your game has: scoring, effect, UI, background, zone (varies by player location)?

Gameplay

Mechanics

What specific choices can the player make and what can they do?

Here are some compilations of game mechanics you might find helpful:

• squidi.net/three/
• SCVNGR game mechanics or as Flashcards
• gamification.org - Game Mechanics

Control

Be specific, here are many of the options:

• Keyboard and/or mouse
• Touch and/or gesture (Mobile only)
• Accelerometer (Mobile only)

Teaching the game

How is the player taught how to play the game? Is this integrated into the gameplay, are there separate instructional scenes, a tutorial, or some combination? Is it obvious to the player how to play the game? See Cascading Information Theory on the SCVNGR game mechanics page.

Player learning

Explain some of what the player needs to learn to beat the game. Be specific and cite actual powerups, combos, and strategies.

Screenshots

Have at least 2 mockup screens of the game. They can be hand drawn and scanned, Photoshop mockups, or scanned doodles - use <img> tags. You can either display the images in this section, or somewhere else on the page.

Other

Something else you'd like to say that doesn't fit elsewhere. Also discuss any external libraries you might use. All JS libraries are subject to Professor approval.

About the developer

Your name/major/minor/year your, skill set (ex. programming, game physics, graphic design, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, music, game sound, ...), and how much JavaScript programming you've done.

Instructions

Overview: Create a living proposal for a 2D casual game you will develop.

"Living proposal" means that the document will be a starting point, but the content will evolve as you work on the game.

Quotes of interest: Why make a plan?

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. - Dwight Eisenhower

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. - Dwight Eisenhower

Fail to plan, plan to fail. - Hillary Clinton

I'm not making any plans. I'm just going to let the universe surprise me. - John Cusack (Don't listen to him for this project)

Important:

• Use the template in the first part of this document, or an equivalent. The page will be visible at : http://people.rit.edu/yourid/450/project-1-proposal.html. Submission: post online, and ZIP and post (HTML & images) to dropbox before due date.
• Don't overscope this! Be sure it's something you could create a reasonable implementation of in JS in 2-1/2 weeks or so. Not every feature you come up with will have to be in the final game, but the core gameplay should be.
• We've a covered chain reaction game, a simple mobile game, and a sprite shooter in this class, but don't feel constrained to these generes. Platformers, puzzle games, tile-based games, and many other genres are possible. You may have to avail yourself of online tutorials - that's fine - just be sure to cite resources - and do your own coding in the final version.
• Teams of 2 are acceptable for this project. You will need to make sure that both of your names are on the proposal, and you will both need to upload the proposal to mycourses and gibson. Team projects will be held to a higher standard on the grading.
• A simple idea that is well-executed is better than an over-scoped and under-realized concept.
• This is a new course, so I don't have a large bank of HTML5 game projects to show you, but there are some great tutorials and examples online. Google: html5 platformer tutorial, Google: html5 match 3 game tutorial, Google: html5 tile based game tutorial
• This High Concept document example by Ernest Adams might be useful.
• Get some ideas for game names here or here
• The game should be fun. Flappy Birds clones need not apply.
• After you've got a tentative design worked out, start coding!

---

** Discussion from Project 0 **

Definition: What's a Casual game? Most casual games have similar basic features: (1)

• Extremely simple gameplay, like a puzzle game that can be played entirely using a one-button mouse or cellphone keypad
• Allowing gameplay in short bursts, during work breaks or, in the case of portable and cell phone games, on public transportation
• The ability to quickly reach a final stage, or continuous play with no need to save the game
• Some variant on a "try before you buy" business model or an advertising-based model

Other Common Characteristics: (2)

• Average play sessions of 2 to 5 minutes
• Overall game length a few hours
• Depth of gameplay is emphasized over length - a small number elements are re-combined in unique ways. ex. Plants v. Zombies.
• Repeatability is emphasized over content. Short and exciting play sessions to encourage the player to give it "just one more try"
• Natural play breaks built into game.
• Variety and surprise are built into the game.

Examples:

• Boomshine - abstract chain reaction game
• Bubbles - avoidance game
• Hundreds -avoidance/"just one more try" abstract iOS game
• Squares 2 - abstract avoidance game
• Particle Blaster - Shooter
• Petals - puzzle game
• Pretentious Game - an abstract game with a strong narrative, and a theme of love, loss and persistence.
• Mondrianism - abstract puzzle game
• Koutack - puzzle game
• Zombie Dice - "push your luck" game

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual_game

(2) Scott Rogers - Swipe This! The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design