CS 269: Computer Game Design

Game Reviews

Split into groups of three.

Each of you should create a new wiki page in your personal space with a title that is your name and CS 269. This will be your main CS 269 handin page, and all of your CS 269 work should be linked to this page.

Your group should select and play three 2D computer games, spending 30 minutes on each game (not including setup time and time to learn how to play). For each game, your group should write a single review that answers the questions listed below. Put all of your names at the top of each review. Put each review on its own wiki page and put a link to each review on your main CS 269 wiki page.

The first eleven items listed below are descriptive of the game. Each game should have a single answer to each of the first nine questions. Each player should then provide their own rankings for questions 12-16.

You have 1.5 hours during class time for this assignment, so it may take some time on your own.

Each person should be responsible for questions 1-11 for one game. You'll contribute your answers to 12-16 for the other two (and maybe some suggestions or editing for questions 1-11).

Questions

1. Name of the game
2. Game platform
3. Write a brief description of the game
4. What are the objective and subjective goals of the game?
5. Describe the game interface. What controls are available to the user, and what aspects of the game do they control?
6. What is the game's genre? Does it follow the rules for the genre? Does it have any unique characteristics relative to other games in the genre?
7. How many different images are used in the game?
8. How many of the images move during gameplay, and how much of the screen do the moving images occupy?
9. What are the major challenges of the game?
10. What is the complexity of the rule set?
11. What kind of competition/interaction/conflict exists?
12. Is the game fun? Rate on a scale of 1 (not fun) to 5 (very fun)
13. Is the game difficult to learn? Rate on a scale of 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult).
14. Rate the visual quality of the game between 1 (poor) to 5 (very good).
15. How engaging is the game? Rate on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).
16. What is your overall recommendation for the game? Rate on a scale of 1 (Do not recommend) to 5 (strongly recommend).