Assignment 4

This is a group assignment (you will continue in the same group as A3, or be in a smaller group). This assignment is marked out of 35 points, and it's worth 10% of the course. (There are possible bonus marks to the assignment, and an additional 10 points towards in-class activity.)

Due Date

2:00pm December 01, 2017.

Part 1: Deployment

Deploy your game on the school's Google Play account by the due date. Be sure you do the following:

List your app under Educational Apps
Make sure your app is free
Have all the text, images, and videos uploaded
Generate and upload the APK

Be sure that your app works after deployment! I will be downloading your app onto my phone for playtesting. Marks will be deducted if your app doesn't show up as the right size and/or is buggy.

Part 2: "Bonus" Features

Pick from the following features to add to your game (if you have other suggestions, let me know):

One of the A2 features that are not yet in your game
Location Aware Gameplay
In a meaningful way that makes sense within your game, make use of location data available and make your game more interesting. For example, maybe the game activities differ depending on where you are, characters may be different depending on the location, background and scenary may be different depending on the current weather, etc. (I realize "weather" is not a location, but thought I'd put it in since it's something specific to the user's *current* environment and general geography.)
Multiple Strategies to Win
Depending on your game and educational concept, there may be multiple ways for a player to win. If your game involves problem solving (e.g., something deeper than just "find all the red blocks on the screen"), and there are many ways to solve the problem, then your game will have a natural fit with this feature. In this case, your game will also have to encode all the possible ways that the player can traverse a path, and all the possible ways that the player can win. Remember to document this thoroughly in your report so we can assess how much work was put into your game!
Multiplayer Gameplay
Allow multiple players to either play cooperatively or competitively. A single game view should show what both players are doing simultaneously (e.g., one hand for each player, both hands moving towards the same game item). In Corona, you may want to use AppWarp for multiplayer setup.
Recognizing Error Types with Hints
Analyze the concept and exercises in your game to determine at least 3 types of errors that a user could make while doing these exercises. Develop a solution graph (similar to what was presented in the KRIT system) so you can provide context-specific hints to the user. Remember to document the solution graph in your report.
Types of hints to consider: a general description reminding them how the concept works, a description that shows the user what the question is asking for, a description that explains to them why their answer is wrong, or a description that eliminates another possible wrong answer (e.g., if you have a multiple choice question and the correct answer is A, tell them why C is incorrect, then cross it out so they can't select it in the future).
Adaptive Difficulty
For your game, design 3 levels of difficulty: easy, medium, and hard. These levels must differ in terms of the exercises required for the user to solve and the points obtained upon success. If your game employs a timer, you can also vary the time constraints in these levels. (However, note that varying the timer constraints cannot be the only thing that changes across the levels; the exercises difficulty must also vary.) For each level, you will need to have at least 5 different exercises.
Given these levels, develop a model that estimates how well the user knows the concepts at each level. Using your model, develop basic heuristics that allows you to adapt the game level to something harder or something easier, depending on how the user is doing. Remember to clearly explain your model and heuristics in your report.
Interesting Non-Player Character Behaviour
If your game has non-player characters, you may want to consider developing characters with more interesting behaviours by using a finite state machine. (See examples discussed in class.) Create two simple FSMs corresponding to two types of characters, or alternatively, create an elaborate FSM for one type of character. Be sure to document your FSMs in your report and to demonstrate how these characters behave differently in your video.
In-Game Store
Build an in-game store for your game that translate points into currency, allowing the players to purchase at least 3 different kind of specialty items that will help them with the game activities. Make sure to show that your game can be played differently with these new items. Your store should also have items that enable your users a more personalized experiene. Have at least 3 additional items that users can purchase that enable them to customize the game (e.g., characters, backgrounds, music).
Something you come up with
A feature that you come up with based on the data you gathered in A3. This must be discussed and approved by the instructor (so to ensure that the scope of a "feature" is approximately the same as the other features proposed).

To be sure what it means to do these features "well", review your project requirements and design with the instructor regularly.

Evaluation Criteria

5 points Description of your game, with emphasis on feature completion and quality (download template to use)
10 points One extra feature implemented and working well for each member of the team. For a group of size N, you will need to build N extra features in the game.
Bonus: 5 points each For each additional feature that is immplemented and working well
10 points Deploying your game onto the PlayStore successfully
5 points A video advertising your game in its final version (60-120 seconds) in .mov or .m4v format. Be sure your video shows which features you've implemented and how they work. Make it slick!
5 points An 8-minute PowerPoint presentation to highlight your project (check out sample presentations: sample 1 and sample 2 )
10 points 10 peer evaluations (counts towards in-class activity)

Remember to document your features well and explain how they work. For example, if you implemented multiple difficulty levels but you don't explain it, and it's not clear how the levels actually differ conceptually, you won't get full marks for that feature! For many of the features in this assignment, you are being evaluated on the quality/model of the feature, not just implementing "a" feature into the game.

What to Submit

Submit electronically on Canvas:

A PDF report based on the template given.
A PDF of your presentation slides.
A video for your game (or a link included into the submitted report).