COP4813 Assignment13 – Create a Game, Part 1
Objectives
Design and Implement a Game in Javascript (using game tools and engines is allowed)
Assignment
You will create a game. You game must have a few basic elements to be a game:
1. A simple set of instructions or rules
2. A way to measure performance of the player.
Item 2 can be a score or a progress through levels. These 2 items pretty much sum up all games.
Your game will be implemented on a web page and will be written in Javascript.
You may use a game engine (there are some in the external resources section). I recommend playing with at least Construct 2 – it is a lot of fun. Construct 2 will generate html code that will execute the game on your web site – if you use it I highly recommend looking at the html code, clean and well-generated.
For this assignment you will work on the game design. You do not have to complete a fully functional game – this is the design phase and a game prototype is all that is required. You should post your game ideas/design/prototype link to the bulletin board for feedback to help with the design – I will also be commenting on game designs. If you have more game ideas that one – post up ideas for other students.
Do NOT use simple common copy and paste games from the internet such as;
- Pong
- Snake
This needs to be YOUR game. You can use the idea of an existing game as your base, but not just a straight copy of existing games I can easily search and find on the internet.
Information
Have fun with this and post your game to the bulletin board to get feedback from the class. If you plan to implement one of the classic games such as pong, snake, or the standard first person shooter (like the Construct 2 tutorial) – YOU MUST add something to make it unique or yours. If you want to modify a classic game here is a list of them with source code – http://www.jsmadeeasy.com/javascripts/games/list_test.asp
Here are some game ideas;
Gridlock – Imagine a traffic network with cars going to lights. The player must change the lights by clicking on them (and the flow of traffic) to keep the network flowing.
Pyramath – This uses the card graphics that I have for the Pyramath card game (www.pyramath.com)
Prime Bomb – Also an online implementation of the game I designed at iseecards.com
Fractazmic – A nice modified version would give some cards shown that don’t quite total to 1 and the player must pick the final card (to equal 1) as fast as possible. Also at iseecards.com
Some other useful tools will be game development platforms
Construct 2 – My favorite game platform, easy to use and a simple, easy to follow tutorial. Produces games fully built in HML5 and Javascript, recommended for this class
GameMaker Studio – A ful fledged platform for building multi-platform games. Good choice if you plan on working on game based app development.
Unity 3D – This is well beyond the scope of this class, Unity is a top of the line professional game engine – and DSC has licenses.
Estimated Completion Time
You can do in as little as 5 hours or you can take weeks. Don’t take weeks – you can always build on your game later.
Supporting Lectures
The COP 4813 Lectures has lots of nice “how to” lectures. This is also where I add more lectures – simply post up that you would like me to create a “how to” lecture.
Questions and Answers
Please post any and all questions to the class bulletin board.
External Resources
You may use a game engine to help with this here are some popular engines
https://www.scirra.com/construct2 – Free download and creates some really cool games. DO NOT post up the games from the tutorials. The basic tutorial can be completed in about an hour and gives you a good starting point for your own game. The tutorials are available here – https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/top. I strongly recommend working through Ghost Shooter to get the basic concepts.
http://html5gameengine.com/ – A list of game engines – some of these can also be used to create compiled games that work on smart phones.
http://www.processing.org/tutorials/ – Processing is a fantastic engine, mostly designed for writing Phone Applications
http://phonegap.com/ – PhoneGap allows you to create programs in html5 and Javascript and compile to native iOS and Android for phones.
Grading Criteria
Show me a game that meets elements 1 and 2 above – get a 10 in return.