Time Traveler Assignment

Background Information

A game I remember from when I was in grade 5 about being a pioneer settling Ontario. We had to decide how much time to spend clearing the bush and how much to spend working for others. Then, when we had land cleared, we had to decide what to plant on it. There were good harvest years and bad harvest years. We had to provide for our family and tried to expand our farm.

A game that students used to play in the lab when they thought that I wasn't looking tracked American settlement in the Midwest. You were supposed to be in a wagon train and you faced all sorts of troubles as you went across the country. If a hail storm came, and you didn’t answer math questions quickly enough, you lost a cow.

If you are still confused, read section D of the Analysis and Design.

Here are some (somewhat random) ideas for a historical RPG:

Analysis & Design

Your design is a written document that plans out how your game will work. Do not actually code it. Make this in MS Word.

A. Choice: Choose one idea for the basis of your Time Traveler program. (Add your own choices or modify the above). Explain why you picked it.

B. Historical Details: I don’t want an “Internet Cut and Paste” job, so I would like a mindmap. You can draw it by hand or create it in SmartIdeas. Find out some details about your time period that would help you make your game more realistic. Some section headings: clothing, role of men/women, food, typical daily activities, housing, jobs.

C. Opening Paragraph: Provide the opening paragraph that you will give your user. It will explain the goals of the game and how the user will win. It will probably give the game's title and some historical background.

D. Tasks: Develop 6 tasks for your user. The more detail, the better. Do not actually code this. I repeat: do not actually code this. Just plan it out in Word.

Here are two examples. More ideas can be found here.

Task 1 - Go to Market

M A R K E T     D A Y
It is market day and you are on the way to a market in a neighbouring village.
What time did you wake up?
(a) 4:00 am
(b) 7:30 am
(c) 9:00 am
(d) noon
Answer? a
That is right, European peasants rise before the sun.
Unscrambe the words of the things you have brought to the market:
aewth>> wheat
That is correct.
ppale>>apple
That is correct.
rotrac>>carrot
That is correct.


Task 2 - Plague

When you are outside the neighbouring city, you see a black flag over the city.    
Smoke is rising from piles that people are burning outside the city walls. What    
do you do?
(a) Turn around and go home, there is a plague.
(b) Cover your mouth and hands, go into the city and sell your crops. Leave    
as quickly as possible.
(c) Fall to your knees and pray. Then go into the city and sell your crops. 
(d) Fall to your knees and pray. When finished, go home and don't allow travellers    
from the city into your village. If you see any, kill some black cats. Everyone    
knows they cause plague.



Answer>>d

That does seem wisest. Black cats are known to be evil. Certainly don't have a bath or
drink clean drinking water. Everyone knows that is a bad idea.

Design Rubric

Remember: This is handed in on paper!

  1-2 3 4
A Choice Choice is clearly made. Choice is well justified. Creative choice, or one that was not on list.
B Historical Details Mindmap exists. Mindmap is detailed and accurate. Depicts daily life in time period well. Extremely well done and detailed. Clothing, food, housing, daily tasks, social structure, beliefs...
C Opening Paragraph Appears, but is too brief and does not describe game to the user. Appears. Explains goal of game and provides historical background. Creative and interesting. Entices user to play.
D Tasks Maybe less than 6 tasks or poorly described. 6 tasks appear, they are well described and are ready to be coded. Creative tasks or extra tasks. Maybe some ASCII art.
Formatting Only 3 fonts. All subtitles and titles appear. Fonts correctly chosen. No underlining. Nicely done. Clearly you know that a computer is not a typewriter.

Code Rubric

  Level 1-4 5-6 7 8
Ifs & Boolean Expressions Some ifs appear. Ifs appear. And &&, Or ||, Not ! appear in boolean expressions (could be in loops too) Alot of ifs. Well coded. Else if and elses are used to improve efficiency. A Switch or a ? appears.
Complexity Game plays well. Fairly complex game. Interesting. Complex game. Some extra features. Several hundred lines of code. Lots of Extra features: printSlow, dialog boxes, dialogs with pictures, methods, rounding, for loop, while loop, do loop.
Formatting, User Friendliness, Error Checking Fairly clear instructions to the user. Easy to enter choices. Lots of instructions to the user. ASCII or other pictures. Spaces before input. Spaces in output lines around variables. Alternate typings allowed in boolean expressions. Error checking occurs.
Comments Title Comments Comments throughout code. Extra Features listed at the top of the code. Sources (aka websites or people) where you found the extra features.

In checklist form: