Before you start with a project it is important to ask "Who needs what and why?". This is where a proposal is helpful to give you direction for your design and development.
A proposal is a technical document that outlines what you are planning on making.
It should include all the details about the outcome and it should fall out of the discussion in your inquiry and includes the details about the digital outcome.
The proposal should be a short document that is no longer than 2 pages and clearly outlines what digital outcome you are going to create.
Context - the circumstances that form the setting for the idea.
The context is the background information. It's the situation that forms the setting for your idea. You should be able to copy and paste the context from your inquiry and depending on where your inquiry lead, you may need to adjust. Remember this can be a story, a sentence, a paragraph, a statement.
"I love gaming."
"Since I was little I have always loved drawing and would really like to take my drawings further."
What problem/issue have you identified through your research. Use the below bullet points to help you write it:
Describe the problem/issue, giving the basic facts about it.
Explain what has gone wrong.
Specify the causes or the origin of the problem
Describe the significance of the problem/issue (short term & long term)
Give the appropriate data and state the sources.
Specify who is involved and in what capacity.
Discuss who initiated action on the problem, or what caused you to look at this.
"the market is flooded with games so how do I make my game successful."
"I don't have the skill level yet and will need to factor learning the skills in."
"Mental health is a huge area."
Scope - involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, tasks, costs and deadlines.
The scope is the work performed to be able to deliver the outcome with its specified features and functions. The scope involves determining and documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, tasks, costs and deadlines.
It should keep you (and the team) on task. A scope statement is the document listing these boundaries, and articulates project details, provides a project roadmap, helps focus you (and your team members), and prevents projects from expanding.
The better a project has been “scoped” at the beginning, the better you can manage change as well as complete the project effectively.
Scope
Identify your resources, skills and strengths and try to keep your idea within those bounds.
Minimum Viable Product
How to take a good idea and distil it down to the one or two key things that make it "fun".
The goal is to create a game that would teach numeracy in a fun and challenging way. Visually and functionally the game should look and perform as described in the specifications and designs. The design for the game is to be completed by [date]. I need to have my game functioning as intended to get tested and feedback by [date] allowing time to refine and improve the outcome. In terms of cost it is just my time and how long it takes me to make. The Deadline for the game to be completed is xxxxxxx.
Purpose - the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
What is the reason you are proposing to create this digital outcome? There needs to be a reason why your end users/target audience needs your outcome.
Based on my research there is a gap in the market with fun games that teach this topic.
High school students need my game to teach them the importance of not getting distracted on their phones and prevent injuries.
People with movement deficiencies like the elderly or those with physical disabilities need my trash robot to take their rubbish to the curbside when they can not.
Requirements - a thing that is needed or wanted and can be described by either its physical or functional nature.
What must the outcome contain to be considered successful. What are the goals in broad terms. There should be at least 5 key requirement.
Must be a scary First Person Shooter game
Must be easy to control
Must have simple game mechanics
Must have AI enemies who attack the player
Specifications - these are technical aspects that must be included in the outcome and be measurable.
This is a list of technical and measurable things that the game “will have” or “will be” in order to achieve the requirements. Note that there should be several specifications for every requirement.
Eg. for a game with a requirement of being scary, specs might include:
The game will have dark lighting
The game will have creepy ambient sounds including distant screaming
The game will be single player only
The game will be set in a mental asylum
The game will have zombies
There should be at least one of two specifications explaining how each requirement will be met so there will be more specifications that are requirements. Some specifications may be valid for multiple requirements. In this example "The game will have zombies" may be valid for "Must be a scary First Person Shooter game" and "Must have AI enemies who attack the player"
End Users - the person or people that an outcome is designed for.
Who is going to use or benefit from the digital outcome? Who are you aiming at developing your product for? Try to aim it at someone in a group you have access to and be specific, don't say “everyone”. When you are developing a target group for your product it can be very useful to pick a group that you have ready access to that you can engage with during the development process.
The game would be aimed at year 7 and 8 students who come to the school for extra tuition.
Resources - are materials, energy, services, people, knowledge, skills, time equipment, hardware, software and expertise
What do you have access to in order make your product:
Who is part of your team?
What skills do they have?
How much time do you have to make it?
What software are you going to use?
What hardware do you have access to?
These resources could be things that you have access to at home, school, local libraries, club facilities, or anywhere else.
This helps you to judge if a game is in scope, is it do-able with the given resources.
You may need to justify why your product is a good idea. Some possible ideas you can use to justify why it is could be:
What feedback did you get
Expert Opinion
Market Analysis
Academic Research
Similar Products
How it relates to the requirements
For example:
"I am going to make a science fiction top down shooter game because ..."
The people that I asked for feedback thought the idea of playing a giaint space squid was a cool and original idea.
Extra Credits said that top down shooters are one of the easiest genres to make.
Games like Nuclear Throne and Helldivers are very popular games with millions of copies sold
During your proposal you should start to identify possible risks to your project and start to address them.
For example:
If you have no idea how to make/do something you need to find some resources and check that it is realistic. Additionally you could give yourself an hour and see how much you can actually do.
Humanoid figures are hard. If they are in your project you need to factor in a considerable amount of time working on these or design the game so you don't need to.
You are NOT going to make a multiplayer game- no matter how much you want to. It's your first game! Keep your idea in scope or you will be setting yourself up to fail.