Matthew Doherty - Project Manager
Trevor Green - QA / Testing
Kevin Gladnick - Lead Developer
Cody Pierce - Business Analyst
Kevin Smithson - Product Owner
##IDEA
We want to create a mobile game that is both addicting and rewarding. We will research games that are currently popular as well as reaching out to individual gamers to get the necessary feedback in order to create the perfect game for our target audience.
After initial research, we have decided to go with a Space Pirate themed game, with ASU CIS professors as the main bosses. We believe this will help get the ball rolling with downloads as there will already be an established customer base: CIS students who want to battle their professors! We used Dr. Clark and Dr. Mazzola as the first and second bosses, respectively. The game will be a top-down, asteroids-like ship shooting game, with multiple types of enemies to encounter.
We have decided to create custom artwork assets to use while developing the game. The pirate ship, ninja stars, and meteors will be hand-drawn, uploaded, and used in the game. We have also decided to code this game using HTML5 and JavaScript, so that it can be played on any modern device on any modern browser. All one needs to do is navigate to the domain, and the game will load and be playable.
Note: mobile phones may need to "zoom out" their display in order to see all of the game features.
##AVAILABILITY
We have decided to keep this game open-source, with all resources available here on GitHub. This game was developed using "ClickTeam Fusion," which is a "drag-and-drop" development platform that uses JavaScript to run the game. The game is currently being hosted at http://kevinsmithson.net using HTML5. Anyone picking up where we leave off will need to make sure that HTML5 is used, as this allows the game to be played on any device or browser. Developers would be wise to ask permission from professors before putting their portrait and voice (sound effects) on the World Wide Web.
We have chosen to keep this game off of the app store (Apple or Android) for now, due to the highly positive feedback we have have received from players regarding the ability to play on any platform on any browser. To continue development, a valuable feature would be to implement a global high scores board, as well as login/member system so that achivements and progress can be tracked and maintained no matter which device a user is playing on.
Note: Our team purchased the "pro" version of ClickTeam Fusion as well as the "pro" version of the HTML5/JS exporter. This weas necessary due to the limits that were placed on us by the trial/free versions of these tools. Any developer wishing to pick up where we left off will need these versions. These software products cost about $150.00 for both tools.
##METRICS PER VERSION
% of players who would replay the game at least once
v1: 83.33%
v2: 70%
v3: 83.33%
% of players who would invite their friends
v1: 50%
v2: 60%
v3: 75%
Total time spent playing the game
v1: 2.33 minutes
v2: 5.4 minutes
v3: 5.5 minutes
Percentage of players who experience technical difficulties
v1: 83.3%
v2: 30%
v3: 20% . ##END RESULTS
After three iterations of game development and user/player feedback, we have seen some very encouraging metric results. Our percentage of players who experience technical difficulties has dropped from an initial 83% down to 20%. Also, players are increasingly spending more time playing the game. This may be attributable to our boss additions and extra level. Also, cleaning up the technical difficulties likely caused players to stay playing for longer. This is an important metric for the business aspect of the game, because potential advertisers may be interested in how long a player might be exposed to an ad in the margins or upon death.
We have also seen an increase in players who claim they would invite their friends. There were only 50% of players who claimed they would invite their friends after playing the first version, and now with version 3, there are 75% of players who say they would invite their friends to play this game. Inviting your friends is as simple as sharing the link, which is better for a viral spread of the game, should it start to gather attention. The number of players who say they would replay the game has stayed relatively flat throughout the version iterations, beginning and ending at about 83%.