IE179 Gender and Computer Games

Final Project

Due Friday 5/6/2005

In this project you’ll develop a concept for a computer game that operates as cultural critique with respect to gender. You will work in the following teams:

Jason Arold/Janna DeVries

Sean Bouchard/Sibhan Schier

Liz Brown/Paul Scott

Faith Dang/Eric Hall

Jon Dodge/Allison Yoneyama

Lindsey Galloway/Veronica Hart

Kyle Kelley/Ryan Riegel/Mjumbe Poe

John McCullough/Selene Tan

Robin Schriebman/Adam Skalanakis

Jacob Seene/Tessa Williams

McKenzie Stuart/Brian Young

The game should be appropriate for implementation in Flash by an experienced team of four students over the course of five or six weeks. In other words, it should be more complicated than your side scroller but it should not be World of Warcraft XX.

On Thursday 4/28/2005 you’ll give a brief presentation to the class on your working concept. You should prepare a survey to get feedback on your ideas.

By Friday 5/6/2005 you’ll submit a design document that includes (at least) the sections described below.

· Overview (1 page) – An introduction and overview of your game. This should be a narrative; no lists of bulleted items.

· Cultural Critique (1 page) – A thoughtful and incisive explanation of how the game works as cultural critique.

· Backstory (1 page)

· Characters – Describe the player’s character and non-player characters.

· Rules and scoring

· Objective – how is the game won and lost

· Interface

· Menus

· Look and feel (words and images)

· Levels

· Walkthrough – describe a sample run of the game from start to finish to clarify your ideas.

Use as much space as needed for each section but no less than the page minimums that are specified. (Not all sections have page minimums.) Each section should be a narrative, not a bulleted list. This is particularly true for the Overview, Cultural Critique, and Backstory. Feel free to use images to help convey your ideas.