Capstone Ideas

Myself and Adam John are working on our capstones together. Our capstone will be a 2D side scrolling platformer/action game. (think Contra, Metal Slug or Blackthorne) It will feature all original pixel art, sound effects and music. It will probably be a little bit slower paced than Contra and Metal Slug, but quicker than Blackthorne.

Pound Town will be a noir story with bright saturated colors, kind of like Dick Tracy. It will have over the top game play with a cover system. It will feature the look of 8/16 bit graphics, not the smooth flash art of today.

We hope to present the game in a custom built arcade cabinet and are very excited to be working on a project like this.

What is capstone?

A capstone is the culmination of your undergraduate career where you hopefully tie in multiple skill sets you have acquired to create a product. The end result can range from a prototype to a polished product. The capstone should neither be too simple or too extravagant. You want something manageable that will maximize your chances at succeeding in that which you have set out to do.

I hope to come away from this capstone with a game that feels like a finished product. I want it to 'just work' with as few bugs as possible. I want it to feel like a professional product that is self contained(i.e. I do not want it to feel like a level just designed in a level editor). The most important thing that I want is for the game to just be fun.

The faculty want students to spend at least 2 semesters working on their capstones because the pre-production phase should probably easily account for as much time as the production phase of the capstone. Nailing down just what you want to do and how best to accomplish that I believe sets a bar as to how successful your capstone can be.