For project repository access, please check your emailed brief or contact dan@gradsingames.com to have the details resent.

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Sumo Digital Rising Star 2018

Gameplay Programming | Stage 2 Brief

Core Brief

You will be required to adapt and improve upon an existing project, developing in Unity using the provided framework to create a playable, finished game. The style and creative direction of the game is up to you to choose. You will need to create additional content, including the development of gameplay, design & technical features before publishing your game as a finished product.

This project is designed to emulate the aspects of a studio development process, including developing from an existing code base.

It is important that for this challenge you work from the existing project and do not start a new project from scratch.

Project Details

• Project framework & usage instructions can be obtained in the BitBucket repository

• Development engine is Unity.

• Release platform is Windows PC.

• Finished projects must be published to the competition game jam on itch.io

• Project submission will require a link to the code repository of your finished project.

• Publication deadline is 28th January 2018 at 11:59 PM

Project Planning Milestones

One of the common trends in previous challenges is the lack of good project planning and pre-production work, leading to multiple issues throughout the process and often ending in games that show wasted potential. We suggest you plan out your project time carefully, split clearly across pre-production, production and presentation and giving ample amount of time to each section.

Spending time to focus on your planning process will solve problems before they happen.

Projects are intended to take between 4-6 weeks to complete & this should be taken into account.

The examples below can be used as starting points for your own project plan.

• Written intro, outline your objective

• Concept design & development

• Core gameplay research

• Game design plan

• Source control, code management & QA considerations

• Core game development

• Technical systems; Networking, Graphics, Audio etc.

• QA, optimisation, balance and refinement

• Publishing; Itch page setup & creation of supporting assets

• Present and discuss your pre-production documentation

• Present and discuss Finished game & production process



Project Assessment Criteria

Judges will award marks based on:

Code

Your ability to maintain good coding practices, to write clean efficient and readable code.

Your ability to read and understand an existing code base (do not start again from scratch). Your approach to identifying problems and implementing solutions. The breadth of your technical ability e.g. gameplay, networking, graphics, performance, editor extensions.

Gameplay

Your ability to identify & implement core gameplay concepts and mechanics.

This includes defined rulesets and objectives, balanced progression systems, risk-reward mechanics and the logic of interactions with AI / other users.

Features

Your ability to construct and implement extra features to the base game

Wide ranging based on your development decisions, assessing everything including complex gameplay systems, high scores, achievements and tutorial intros.

UI / UX

The clarity and ease of use of user systems.

The implementation, practicality of navigation & control systems, interfaces and game accessibility functions.

Creativity & Originality

The implementation of great ideas, overall style & creative concepts.

Subjective assessment looking at everything from concept development & design plan all the way to your published games page and the final game content.

Submission Guide

All finished projects are required to be published on the itch.io platform and submitted to the Sumo Digital Rising Star 2018 game jam by 28th January 2018 at 11:59 PM

We advise that you set up a draft of your project page ahead of the deadline.

To create your game project page, go to your itch.io Dashboard and select the ‘Upload New Project’ option.

Complete the submission form, in line with itch.io’s Quality Guidelines

• Include a cover image and screenshots. Include a gameplay video if possible.
• Set ‘Kind of project’ to ‘Downloadable’.
• Set pricing to ‘Disable all payments’ - You can change this once all projects have been marked by the judges if you wish.
• Complete the ‘Description’ text field with information about your game. This must include information about your game controls.

• Upload any supporting documentation as a separate PDF file alongside your game file.

• When your project is complete, set ‘Visibility & Access Settings’ to ‘Public’. If you choose, you may also tick the box for ‘Unlisted in search & browse’.

Go to the Sumo Digital Rising Star 2018 page and press the ‘Submit your jam’ button

Select your finished game and press ‘Submit’.

You may create, update & make changes to your project page at any point, but please do not make further changes after submission to the game jam.

Additional instructions to allow assessment of your code base will be provided nearer to deadline.

Support & Resources Support information, FAQ & resources, as well as a copy of this project brief, can be found on the itch.io community forum pages for the project. Additional help & guidance may also be posted here throughout the challenge, so it’s recommended you check it regularly. Community Forum : https://itch.io/jam/rising-star-game-dev-challenge-2018/community We’ll also be active in the community forum to help you out & answer questions. If you have any questions about the project or competition contact Aardvark Swift / Grads In Games at dan@gradsingames.com or call us on 01709834777