Project Space Shooter

My pending course Game Analysis & Game Design is coming to an end. This is going to be the final and the biggest assignment this month. Once again we got devided into groups by six. In my group we are three artists and three programmers. 
The roles are:

Producer
Game Designer
Lead Code
Lead Art
Lead Sound
QA – Quality Assurence

My role in this project is as the QA. Short information about what a QA does! 🙂

Quality Assurance (QA) is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers. QA is applied to physical products in pre-production to verify what will be made meets specifications and requirements. QA is also applied to software to verify that features and functionality meet business objectives, and that code is relatively bug free prior to shipping or releasing new software products and versions. 

         – In own words, I am responsible to approve our end product in all ways, 
                                                                   graphical, mechanical, aestethical etc. –

I first had no idea of this role but grew to like it. My wish was to become the Lead Artist but later in the project I noticed all my teammates were not only doing their task. They were also helping out with other things like design, visuals and mechanics aswell.

First we had to come up with an idea. Like other assignments we got two keywords that the game should include:
                              
                                            Dragon & Oscilloscope

Criteria: It has to be a 2D non gravity space shooter game on the PC platform with a 1h gameplay time experience with a minimum of three powerups. 

How where we going to do this? Some kind of sound or music had to be in the game and dragons. Our first thought was to have dragons as antagonists in a square gamefield. and fight them with music but later our idea grew to make the player play as the dragon. Mechanic or “living” dragons was our next concern. Cyborg dragons. Part organic part mechanic because we wanted to give them glowing eyes, laser sight and part of the body would also glow. We thought cyborg dragons would fit this the best. 

Brainstorm map:
Mechanic or “flesh” dragon models?
    Enemies, figures? robots? colorsplashes –> Explode by contact
        Singing dragons/Enemies Singing?
            Powerups? |Slow down|2x Score|Use 2 attacks at the same time
           
VISUAL
Background: Dark background like in Limbo, different layers, mystical 
(Limbo Photo)
Dragon: Bright in neon, half flesh, half armored (Cyborg)
Enemies: Dark but when hit they explode in colors

NARRATIVE
War has just begun on the Robotdragon planet. The planet is being invaded by unknown monster enemies with unknown talents. You are playing a dragon that has been banished from the others because he is unable to spit fire and does not have the required fighting skills. Your unusual talent is to sing which in the eyes of the Dragon Society is nothing useful. Alone you have to face the monster invasion and so you learn the weakness of your enemies. When singing you attack the monsters and so they explode by your tones. You learn that singing is the only way to destroy the enemy. To regain the respect of your dragonpeople you begin your journey to save the universe.

STEP ONE – THE PAPERPROTOTYPE
RULES FOR THE PAPERPROTOTYPE

Needed are three participants:

• 1 to operate the machine
• 1 player to play the game
• 1 to document the score

RULES FOR THE OPERATOR

• When the player is ready, start turning the handle clockwise to start the game.
• Continue in the same pase as you started through the entire game until the end.

RULES FOR THE PLAYER

• The game begins when the operator starts rolling the paperroll and monsters appear on the screen.
• You use the mini-paddle to create a musical note when hitting the bottles.
• Only hit the bottle once.
• Match the color of your attack/attacks to the colors of your enemies to defeat them.
• Example: When a green enemy appears on the screen, hit the green bottle once.

  If a multicolored monster appears you will need to hit that monsters every color in any order to defeat it. Be aware, some enemies are multicolored. You will need to hit each enemy before they leave the screen.

• The multicolored enemy will only be defeated if all its colors has been played in sequence. If you play the wrong colored bottle in the middle of the sequence the enemy will survive and you have to start. If you have the time you can try once again.
• Once the enemy has disappeared from the screen your chance of defeating it is gone.
• Missing enemies will not give any penalty points, but try to defeat as many as possible for the highest score.

RULES FOR THE SCOREKEEPER

• Each time the player defeats an enemy the score increases by 10. (Tip: draw a line/mark for every deafeated enemy.)
• At the end of the game, count all the lines/marks and multiply them by 10.

POWERUPS

When the Powerup appears (circle with three colors and a “P” in the middle) the player has to hit the three colors in any order to receive the Powerup boost.

1. You receive the second paddle and you keep it through the rest of the game. (If you miss the first Powerup you will receive it when the second Powerup appears.)
2. The operator slows down the scrolling for two pages. 

HOW TO CREATE THE PAPERPROTOTYPE

Needed: 1 box, 1 golf club/pole, 10 or more A4 papers, 2 pencils, 1 mousepad, 6 glass bottles
How to create 

Prepairing the Paper Roll: Attach 10 or more A4 papers to eachother in a line and paint different types of monsters on the blank sides. The monsters has to be in either 1, 2, 3 or 4 colors but not more.

Prepairing the Box: Put the golf club/pole through the box and attach the paper role to the club/pole on the inside of the box. Cut out two hollow stripes on the front side of the box for the paper roll to scroll through.

Prepairing the Drumsticks: Tape a piece of a mousepad (square form) at the end of the pencil (Do this on both pencils.) 

Prepairing the bottles: 

• Fill each bottle with water to the assigned level.
• Place the bottles inside the bottle holding apparatus. 
• Place the bottles in a descending order based on the amount of water inside the bottles.

Prepairing the machine:
To start the game, you will need to reload the level if you have not done so before. To reload the level you will need to pull the end of the paper roll out of the upper slot and inserting it into the lower slot. After you have done so, carefully pull the paper through the lower insertion point until the golf club is fully free from paper.