This project is to be done in groups of two to three. Work on the project should be proportional to the number of people on your team. Larger teams may give the opportunity to complete a more ambitious project, but also introduce more coordination headaches. At the very least, I recommend that your team designate someone as the technical lead to manage the work of the other team members.
Choose an interesting simple idea for an interactive application. This may be a game, driving or flight simulator, engaging interactive experience, or anything else that you and your team choose. It can run on the platform of your choice, using the tools of your choice. Project ideas must be cleared with me in advance, and I may suggest changes after you submit your project topic.
The project should include at least one technically interesting feature. By technically interesting feature, I mean something not normally seen in games, possibly something from a research paper, possibly something you could turn into a research paper after the semester is over.
There are a couple of things I'd particularly like to see a group (or several) tackle this semester. To encourage these, I'll award five bonus points for any group whose projects includes one of these: uses XNA and runs in our new XBox 360 lab, uses the leaning joystick thing in the IRC (can count as your technically interesting feature), or runs on an iPhone with an interesting interface using the touch sensor, accelerometors or cell strength as inputs (can count as your technically interesting feature; must supply your own iPhone and be unafraid of jailbreaking it or crashing it during development)
Each project will be required to give two in-class presentations. Coordinate your presentations so you cover all material without excess repetition, and so each project member gets a chance to speak. The status report presentation should be approximately 10 minutes long. Formal slides are not necessary, but images, video or demos of what you have working are encouraged. The final presentation should be approximately 20 minutes long. They should include slides in the style of a GDC presentation on your technically interesting feature: what it is, how it works, and how it fits into your game. Demos are strongly encouraged. If necessary, we will move the presentations for that day to other on-campus locations to accomodate project demos.
Students enrolled in CMSC 691 must also write a report on their project. This report should focus on the technical feature, and should be written in the style of a chapter from a book like GPU Gems. Students in the same group may work together on the report, but must send me an individual email giving the percentage of work they feel was their own. For groups with a mixture of 491 and 691 students, only the 691 students are responsible for the written report.
| Sep 27 | Email with project topic |
| Oct 25 | Email update on your project status |
| Nov 6/8 | Brief (10 minute) in-class status reports. |
| Nov 20 | Email update on your project status |
| Dec 4/6/11 | In class project presentations. |