Wildlife Search Game

PROJECTB Digital Game Design

Process Book

ITGM 705 Visual Interface and Information Design Summer 2010 | Professor David Meyers

Š 2010, All Rights Reserved. Intellectual Property of Tim Putt

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

1

table of contents 3 Project Details 5 Proposal 6 Project Ideas 7 Proposal 8 Rough Sketch 11 Game Play - Screenshots 12 Final Game Screens

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

2

project details |

Final Project, Digital Game

OBJECTIVE Design and produce a digital interactive game, story, information system, or artwork. The topic and area of exploration is up to you, although it is recommended that you select a topic related to your interests and your intended degree focus.

Motivation: This section should describe your motivation for choosing the project you’ve selected. It should also describe the motivations that will draw your intended audience to the project.

2. Post your initial project ideas to the appropriate Unit 6 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 6.

3. Review the feedback provided by your professor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

PROCESS Part 1: Proposal, Due: End of Unit 6 1. Write a one- or two-page proposal that describes the topic you’ve chosen to investigate and the product you intend to design. Your proposal should articulate the concept, design direction, and significance of your chosen project and must include all of the following elements.

Design Statement: This section should answer the question, “What problem are you trying to solve?”

udience and Context: This section should A define the context in which your project will be consumed and the audience for which you will create it.

3. R eview the feedback provided by your professor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

4. Submit your final proposal (in RTF format) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 6.

Part 2: Visualization and Conceptualization, Due: End of Unit 7 Begin realizing your project through visualization and conceptualization. Depending upon the nature of your project, this phase may involve creating any of the following: • storyboards • wireframes • flow diagrams • initial designs

Digital Game

ITGM 705

• any other suitable means of giving initial form to your project.

2. Post your initial visualizations (as a single PDF file) to the appropriate Unit 7 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 7.

4. Submit your final visualizations (as a single PDF file) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 7.

Part 3: Prototype, Due: End of Unit 8 1. Develop a digital prototype for your project.

Depending upon the nature of your project, this might take the form of any of the following: • a playable game mechanic • a navigable set of wireframes of a Web site structure • any other “rough” format that will facilitate user testing.

2. Post your initial prototype to the appropriate Unit 8 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 8.

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

3

project details |

Final Project, Digital Game

3. Run at least one test session of your digital prototype. Test it with at least five different people within your target audience. You are encouraged to use a feedback form to help you collect data and focus audience feedback.

4. Given the feedback received, prepare a brief report addressing the key issues raised, key areas of success, and any design decisions to address key issues. Post this report—along with a copy of the raw feedback collected during testing—to the appropriate Unit 8 discussion forum by Day 5 of Unit 8.

5. Consider feedback provided by your professor and peers, along with the results of user testing, and make any desired revisions to your work.

6. Submit your final digital prototype, your raw testing feedback, and your brief user-testing report (as a ZIp package) via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 8.

Part 4: Final, Due: End of Unit 9 1. Develop a polished final version of your project.

2. Post a working digital version of your workin-progress to the appropriate Unit 9 discussion forum by Day 3 of Unit 9.

3. Review feedback provided by your professor and peers, and make any desired revisions to your work.

4. Update your proposal to reflect any changes to the original plan, including your rationale for these revisions. Feedback gathered during the testing should be included as well, particularly as it impacted your design decisions.

5. Add description(s) for use or game rules to your original proposal document.

6. Submit your final project and your final project proposal as a single zipped archive via the Submissions link in the course menu before the end of Unit 9.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

4

project evaluation |

Final Project, Digital Game

Evaluation Criteria

• Your proposal should define a project appropriate in scope for a four-week graduate project.

• Your proposal should speak to an appropriate audience and context for use, given the focus of the project.

• Your revised project proposal should accurately reflect the final state of your project and should logically discuss any major design changes made between the initial proposal and the final product.

• Your proposal should clearly introduce the use and experience of your project to someone who has never encountered the project before.

• Your final project should be polished and fully realized. This means that, for the purposes of this project, visual design is as important as interactive design.

• Your project should be appropriate to the medium and tools of choice and the experience level of your intended users.

• Your project should be based on interaction model(s) beyond wellknown examples.

• Your project should show development and refinement as you move through the production phases.

• Your final project must be interactive and fully functional.

• Your proposal should be well written and free of grammatical and typographic errors.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

5

project ideas |

Final Project, Digital Game

Ideas • Spot the differences game - headshot with agency touchups - location with small changes - energy efficient house differences (Save money game) • Find the hidden items game - hiking theme - three different scenes with different animals to spot and add to your nature spotting (catalogue)

Selected Direction

• Designer forum to help connect denominational clients with like-faith creative’s - designer profiles - location for businesses to submit projects

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

6

proposal |

Final Project, Digital Game

Design Statement The goal is to create a fun game for kids that will teach them to look closer and to look more attentively.

Audience and Content Kids from ages 4 to 14 will enjoy searching for the hidden animals. By using the binoculars the game instantly targets the players curiosity. The desire to explore wildlife is fueled in this game, intentionally to get kids interested and excited about what nature has to offer. By using the zooming of the binoculars, the player is drawn into the interface which is simple and intuitive.

Motivation Familiarizing children with the great outdoors is the first step to getting them excited about nature and eventually conservation.

This game doesn’t go too deep into conservation, but it does teach kids about the pristine beauty of mother nature. To win the game, players must spot every listed animal on the scroll. The list of shapes is an incentive of what to look for next and gives clues as to what they might be.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

7

rough sketch |

Panoramic Scene

By creating a panoramic scene one option is to create a seamless transition that could have the viewer continually spin 360Ëš.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

8

digital sketch |

Panoramic Scene, Digital Draft

The background scene doesn’t contain any of the hidden animals as they are inserted in the Flash development process.

Smaller version of the same graphic (used to create the illusion of magnification).

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

9

actionscript 3.0 |

Development progress

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

10

game play |

Development progress

Players can explore the landscape with their binoculars.

When a player thinks they may have found an animal or nature arti- When the player clicks on an item in the “Nature Search� list it fact they can zoom in or navigate left and right to see it more closely. highlights indicating it has been found. The player wins when all the objects have been found.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

11

final game screens |

Online World Wildlife Game This game requires the player to use there own intellect to figure out the game. The game is simple—find the animals and does not truly require more directions.

I considered adding a timer to the game, however this isn’t a game to be rushed, but to be enjoyed so I opted not to add that feature.

The animals that have been found and clicked use both an audio cue and a less noticeable visual indicator as well.

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

12

final game screens |

Online World Wildlife Game

Fox

Owl

Butterfly

Inchworm

Fish

Winning/Launch screen

Digital Game

ITGM 705

Visual Interface & Info Design

Spring 2010

Professor David Meyers

13