Closed Beta Release

Your fourth presentation is your “closed beta” presentation. In order to get your development going quickly this semester, we moved up the production schedule split the single beta release into two. With that said, the difference between betas is a bit artificial. As for any beta release, we are expecting a clearly recognizable game. In particular, we want at least four playable levels of clearly varying difficulty.

In addition, closed beta should be finished enough that you can start getting extensive feedback on your game from your close friends or residential hall mates. It should be playable by people who are forgiving of a clearly unfinished piece of software. This is different from public beta, where the user interface should be much more polished (from feedback on this closed beta).

Table of Contents

Presentation Format

As with the last prototype, your class presentation will consist of two parts. However, this time the presentation is a little different. We are not asking for a separate designer presentation to show off art. By this time, we hope that your assets are finally incorporated into the game. Instead, we ask that the designers give us another presentation about your level design. We removed the historical level design document to make room for the promotional video. So we need a new way to see and critique your level design ideas.

Software Deliverable

We will have roughly 18 minutes per group, per presentation. We want the bulk of this time (8-10 minutes) to be devoted to showing off the game so far. You should have one person playing it while another team member narrates the play. The narrator and player should not be the same person (so that the player can concentrate on playing). The narrator should point out game play elements, challenges, and strategies as the player encounters them.

We expect this to be somewhat rehearsed. You should develop a script for this presentation and stick to it (to the best of your player’s ability at the game).

Level Design Ideas

As with all of the presentations, we do want a slide presentation with design ideas. However, the design presentation will be different this time. We no longer want to see art in your design presentation. Our philosophy is that, from this point forward, any finished art should be incorporated into the game.

Instead, we want you to review your level design ideas. In this slide presentation, we want the following:

  • A brief of your design philosophy (as stated in the gameplay specification)
  • At least three basic patterns that you have identified in your game.
  • A complex pattern that combines two or more of these patterns together.

To come up with your design patterns, you should review the level design lecture. You also consider the feedback that you received on the level design critique

Presentation Schedule

The structure for this presentation is the same as the previous ones. As you can see from looking at the calendar, this presentation will take place over the entire week. This is intended to give you long enough to present and answer questions.

While we would like you to playtest, we are moving playtesting to the discussion section, just as we did for the previous release. As a result, this means that you must have something to playtest (even if it is not a full beta release) by Wednesday, no matter what day you are presenting on.

Monday (April 17)

  • The Preservation Project (Name Pending Studios)
  • Aphelion Defense (Aphelion Studios)
  • Pantry Panic (Rodent Renegades)

Wednesday (April 19)

  • Sunk Cost (Risky Biscuitz)
  • Pivot (Hyercube Studios)
  • Meowndering (Schrödinger Studios)

Friday (April 21)

  • Reharmonia (Spectral Hermit)
  • Stregheria (Mission Infinity)
  • Lunar Lasso (Binary Bandits)

Submission

Due: Sat, Apr 22 at 11:59 PM

As before, you are not submitting any software to CMS. Instead, we want you to create a release in your Git repository. This release should follow the same rules that you used for the technical prototype.

However, we have an additional requirement this release. We are no longer accepting releases that require us to compile code. You must have an executable for your targeted mobile device. For Android, this means an APK built to run on all devices. For iPhone it means either using TestFlight or Firebase. Talk to the course staff if you need to know more. There is a lead time for TestFlight, so you need to get started on that right now, well before this assignment is due.

We also want you to upload your level design slides. We will make an entry for this in CMS.

Finally, you should not forget to turn in your fourth two week report. This will allow us to see how you are organizing you time, and make suggestions for future milestones. Remember to address any issues that we pointed out in your previous report.