Table of Contents:
I) Project Management
- Team working agreement
- Individual responsibility agreement
- Project Schedule
- Meeting Notes
II) Business Plan
- User Identification and Interviews
- Electronic/Print Advertisement
- 5-7 min video with demo
III) Software Documentation
- Introduction
- User manual
- Program Description for Developers
- Algorithm, Flowchart or Pseudocode
- Final Program with Comments
- Discussion
- Conclusions and Recommendations
- References
Executive Summary:
The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of the concept of programming. There are many different uses for coding that can be used in many different ways. From solving complex equations to calculating formulas, to producing graphs using multiple functions. Probably the most complex type of code is that of programming a video game. Video games are intensely complex because the concept that the user will choose the outcome of the game. Because of this, the programmer must think of every probability and outcome that can happen when the user is playing the game. This causes for a very smart computer to be programmed. Planning the code is the first part. Writing an algorithm or flowchart to see how the program will work, but the second part is actually writing the code and trying to get it to work. An even when the code is written, usually there can be some problems that need to be debugged. Overall, programming can be very difficult if not planned out in the beginning.
Playing this game is very simple, the commands are easy to use. The game will prompt you to either use a cheat mode or not. The cheat mode allows you to see the computers board. This could be used for the first couple of games so that the user can understand the controls of MATLAB and what each prompt the game is asking and what to type correctly. This game can be played fairly quick but long enough to give users a challenge. Earlier on in the development of the game, we did some interviews. The first interview was with a classmate. The time slot from when this interview took place was in the beginning before we started the project. The questions pertaining to the interview were to give us and idea of how we should implement the code of our game. Such of that includes the length of the game, ie how long the game should take, what kind of game and how challenging it should be. Taking all of these questions into consideration, we were able to develop a game that would match the play style of the audience we were pushing the game towards. The second interview was conducted fairly later in the development process of the game. This interview had the same type of questions but from another classmate. This interview’s main purpose was to give us more data on how our game should be so that we could make modifications to the game so that it could be enjoyed by the users to the fullest extent.
Programming the game was a long and tedious process. Which involved much trial and error. The best way that can be said to program something of this magnitude is to program it incrementally. What this means is to write sections or part of the code and run it to see if it worked. This was extremely beneficial. What this did was it allowed us to make sure each part of the code worked individually. So that when the whole code itself was put together it would work. For instance, if the code were to be written blindly and not tested throughout writing it, the end result could outcome in a variety of problems. After finding that the Game worked, we then went through different scenarios checking to make sure that these different outcomes would produce the correct and desirable results.
For the documentation of this project, we analyzed different tasks and how we should complete them and in what order we should do them. Making documentation throughout the project was very beneficial for many reasons. If we did the documentation at the very end, after the majority of the project was completed, it might be difficult to recall information about things that happened and experiences we had in the very beginning. The documentation’s main purpose was to make an overview of the project to show all instances of our tasks and the order in which we completed the project. Some recommendations are to document every task that must be completed as long with all the steps that should be taken to complete the project. Also to be careful when programming the game. The game and the actual development of the code was the biggest and the majority of the project. So to complete and understand the code and how the code works is very huge in the project.