Concept Revision

The assignment for this week is very simple: revise the concept document. This is one of two revisions on your concept document. You will have another official Document Revisions (for gameplay specification and the technical specifications) close to Alpha Release. At that time you will submit your final version of this document. Unlike the other documents, we do not want you submitting the Concept Document with final document portfolio, as it does not make sense to submit a concept document for a finished game.

In revising your document, please read all of our comments and respond to them. The biggest problem was the gameplay sketches. Way too many of you gave them large captions, and it completely undermined your high concept statements. We were looking at the captions to understand the gameplay because the high concepts told us nothing but setting.

The solution is simple: captions more than two lines are forbidden. Instead, we want your picture to be side-by-side (or underneath) your feature list and your picture should clearly illustrate these features. That means we do not want a sprawling storyboard for your illustrations, just a concise representation of gameplay.
If you want to add multiple illustrations, or give us more detail this is exactly what the Additional Details are for.

To give you a better idea of what we are looking for, we have reworked the beginning of the concept document for the 2018 game Trino below. Notice how you can completely learn the gameplay from the high concept statement, features, and picture with no captions needed (though captions are still good).

Example: Trino

High Concept Statement

A plush dinosaur named Duggi gets separated from family and struggles to find the way home. Small and helpless, Duggi imagines itself bigger and stronger, wandering through endless mazes and solving puzzles in order to escape. Desperate to see loved ones again, Duggi takes on more powerful forms to fight foes, eat through obstacles, and reunite with family.

trino-concept

Features

  • Navigate through mazes while avoiding enemies
  • Explore visible and hidden parts of the maze
  • Destroy walls to find the fastest path to the exit
  • Fight enemies to clear a path
  • Spawn decoys to distract enemies and solve puzzles
  • Place clones to press switches and unlock new areas
  • Swim across rivers to avoid enemies
  • Lure enemies to slam boulders out of the way

Submission

Due: Sat, Feb 19 at 11:59 PM

There is no new assignment in CMS for your document revision. Instead, we will give you an extension in CMS for the original assignment. You will submit your revision there in place of your original submission. This is also where we will post the updated grade and feedback.