Great War: Strategic Tactical Advance

Date of Initial Inception

Eric Dutton Design Lead
December 12, 2014
Patrick Arbasak Programming Lead
Author of this Document
Sarah Creviston Art Lead
Nick Reed
John Wisniewski Co-programming Lead
Eric Dutton Lead Level Design

Technical Field
The technical field related to this project is game design.

Background Information
This project was conceived between some friends and myself when we were pitching ideas
around for potential green light ideas. The inspiration comes from the fact that there are not a lot
of WW1 games on the market, with even less in terms of the real-time strategy genre.
Additionally, we felt as if this project should coincide with the centennial of the First World War
in an inspirational sense.

Prior Art
We will not be using any prior art in this project outside of some very old free domain
photographs.

Project Description
This project is a real-time strategy game based around historic battles from the First World War.
The player takes control of an allied unit and leads his party to victory via an irrefutable battle
through trench warfare. The battles which take place in this game are historically accurate in that
they only contain weapons and assets used from the actual battles themselves. Therefore, each
battle or campaign level is historically precise in that sense.

Innovation Claim
The innovation behind this game is in the historical accuracy of particular WW1 battles. Each
victory condition is consistent with victories achieved in the actual battles.

Usage Scenario
The game is currently single-player campaign based. The player takes on the role of an allied
commander who takes control of a particular army and fights his way to victory. The player will
begin the game by fighting in battles at the outset of the war and progress through the game to
the end of the war via historic battles. These battles are portrayed in a way that encourages the
player to research the methodology used to win them. So in that sense, the game is both
educational and fun at the same time, (which is a difficult balance to achieve). The target
demographic is likely real-time strategy fans and people who enjoy history-based video games.
Age demographic is teens to adults.

Evaluation Criteria
Playable game: Yes/No Yes
Winning condition: Yes/No Yes
Pause menu: Yes/No Yes
Mission goals: Yes/No No
GDD: Yes/No Yes
TDD: Yes/No Yes
French units: Yes/No No
British units: Yes/No Yes
German units: Yes/No Yes
Authentic audio: Yes/No Yes
Improved menu interface: Yes/No Yes

Objectives and Tasks Associated with the Project

Authentic audio: Finished
Graphic User Interface: Almost fully functional. Should be complete by week 12.
Multiple levels based on realistic battles: In progress (expected by the end of GAM460)

Fun and educational gameplay: Yes

Educational interface options: Not yet

Description of Design Prototype

The design prototype is a playable game demo which includes a mini-campaign and a fully
functional menu/GUI/pause system.

Evaluation Plan
The game plays like a real-time strategy and the feedback we have gained from testers and public
review is invaluable. We plan on running the game through another production course next
semester and completing the ready-to-launch project within the scope of a year.

Project Completion Assessment

Attached below is the post mortem report for the initial semester of work. It can be found in the
appendices section.

Appendices
Appendix A: Game design document Great_War.docx
Appendix B: Post mortem document
Appendix C: Technical Design Document
Appendix D: Playable game build