Name:________________________

Partner’s Name:____________________________

Junior Game Design CAT

In pairs, you are going to design a game to meet a particular focus. Your game
needs to balance the five elements of game design and include three levels of
complexity.

You will present your game to your peers for feedback and then present your
final game to the class.
Your first task is to pick the challenge you would like to complete.

What challenge did you pick and why?

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Before you start building your game you need to think about how you can use
the five elements to design your game.
Remember!
The look and feel of a game come from the design of its SPACE.
COMPONENTS are parts of the game like Avatar, Blocks and Enemies.
MECHANICS are the actions in the Game like Jumping, Collecting or Blasting.
Players try to achieve GOALS to win the Game.
RULES Guide the player on how the game should be played.

Answer the following questions in detail.

What kind of space would suit your challenge? (Top – down or platform?
scrolling, bound or unbound?)
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What components could you use and why?

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What mechanics will be used in your game?
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What goals will players need to achieve? (collect the points, kill the enemy,
find the keys etc)
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What rules could there be? (How do players lose points or die?)
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Game Balance
A game is balanced when it is easy to play, but difficult to win.
The balance of all five elements of game design, and the balance between fun
and challenge.

An unbalanced game is:

 Gamestar have too many enemies
 or not enough time to complete the game
 The game may take too long to complete
 The avatar may move too fast or too slow in its particular game space.

How will you make sure that your game is balanced?

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Once you have shown your teacher that you have answered these questions
you are ready to start building your game.

Remember that your game must address the challenge that you picked and
have three levels of increasing difficulty. Lastly, your game must be balanced.
In the next few pages are some guidelines of how to build your game.

1. Log in to Gamestar Mechanic and go to the Workshop

2.

3. Go to Game Settings in the top left corner

4. Go to the Level Settings below and choose your space, background and
music.

5. You can then start adding your components such as sprites and blocks.
You can change the characteristics of a component by first clicking on
the spanner icon on the righthand side and then click on to the
component.

6. You need to includes sprites from all five categories: Avatar, Enemy,
Block, Item and System.

7. Remember that you need three levels of increasing difficulty, so don’t

make the first one too hard!
 Peer Feedback
Now that you have finished designing a game you need to get another pair to
test out your game and fill in this form for you. Your teacher will have hard
copies of this form to use.

Names of students giving feedback:___________________________________

Names of game designers:___________________________________________

Name of the game:________________________________________________

Which challenge was the game based on? Was it clear? Why?
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What were the core mechanics of the game? Did they fit well with the game?
Why?
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How did the game space make you feel? Did it fit with the mechanics and
concept of the game? Why?
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Are all the elements balanced? How?
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What was challenging about the game?

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What was fun about the game?

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How would you improve the game?

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Using Peer Feedback

Now that you have your feedback, list three changes you will make to improve
your game? Explain how they will improve it.

1._______________________________________________________________
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2._______________________________________________________________
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3._______________________________________________________________
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Final Presentation!

Your final task is to create your final presentation. Your presentation should
include the following
- How your game was based on the challenge you chose.
- A description of the game play including (space, components,
mechanics, rules and goals) include screen shots.
- A summary of the feedback you received
- A summary of the changes that you made to your game.

Presentation Date:_________________________________
Final Evaluation
This task is to completely individually and in test conditions.

Name____________________

1. What was the core concept of your game? How did it match the
challenge that you picked?
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2. What were the goals and rules of your game? How did players win and
lose?
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3. What were the core mechanics of the game? Did they fit well with the
game? Why?

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4. How did you design the space of the game? Did it fit with the mechanics
and concept of the game? Why?
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5. How balanced was your game? How could you tell?

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6. How would you improve the game?

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