3B. Game Design Document
Due: December 21st, 2024 (by 5pm)
Weight: 25% of final grade
Medium: Any
Stream: Game Design
Length: (~2000 words minimum, no max)
Your goal is to develop a detailed game design document (hereafter GDD, based on the template by Rosa Carbo-Mascarell, ported to Obsidian by Shawn Graham and available on our shared Obsidian vault). This document will ask you to think through and develop detailed descriptions of game mechanics and game play for a possible game of your own design.
Your goal is not simply to create a game set in the past, but to create a history game, i.e. a game that communicates a clear thesis about the past through its mechanics. Essentially, if you complete this assignment I want you to be able to walk away from this class with something in hand that you can use to showcase your game design skills (to use in the classroom etc.)
Your project needs to include:
Catchy Title (i.e. the name of the game)
Abstract (~250 words) making explicit the key historical message your game is meant to communicate
Game materials (choose which of the following are most pertinent)
Game Design Document (based off existing template) for complex games
OR an annotated Rulebook and sample prototypes for simpler analog tabletop/ card/ role-playing games
OR Twine interactive fiction
Propose something else and I'll consider it
You are encouraged to develop the game as fully as possible and, if possible, produce a playable prototype by the end of term. Since every game is different it is difficult to offer a clear binding set of guidelines, but the key to the assessment of this assignment is that the final product:
shows clear basis in historical research and builds off of the preparatory work done in assignments 1 and 2.
contains sufficient information and game materials that the proposed game can be readily understood and visualized
shows an awareness of relevant game mechanics and shows a creative willingness to innovate in service of the historical message being communicated
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