Design Brief/Specs/Testing

Design Brief:

The purpose of this project is to design and create a playable video game.

Specifications:
- written using BYOND engine
- 2-D
- Graphics created using in-program editor

Limitations:
-Project must incur costs of necessary programs
-Skill level of creator
-Game must be appropriate for necessary age bracket

Measuring Playability:

To measure the playability of the game one must first consider the following factors:
Age of participants
Difficulty of game
Aesthetics
Controls

Whereas the participants must fall within the Teen-Mature age bracket as defined by the ESRB; the difficulty can neither be so low as to not be a challenge, nor to high as to become tedious; the game must appear pleasing to the eye and the scenes should be easy to interpret; the controls must be straight forward and easy to learn.

To determine playability, each participant will be issued a survey at the end of the testing period, where they will rate the program from 1 – 10 across these several factors through a series of 20 questions. A score of 1 indicates “poor”, where as a score of 10 shows the player found the game to be “excellent” in that specific area. Depending on the scores received, the game may need to be revised to better appeal to the audience, or left as tested if reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

Plan of Action:

1. Testing will performed by the second week of February 2008.
2. If necessary, the game will be revised and participants will again perform a test
3. Process will repeat until product receives overwhelmingly positive reviews
4. Game must be completed by March 15, 2008