Final Project: Build a Fail State

The capstone — design and justify an original fail state, then present it to the class in week 12

Due: 24 May 2027 · Weight: 40%

The brief

Design an original fail state for a game — real, prototyped, or specified on paper — and be ready to explain the failure it’s designed to produce.

This is where the semester’s tools stop being things you read about and become things you use. Your fail state should reflect a real decision: what tier of the taxonomy it operates at, what it takes from the player, how it’s felt in the moment, and whether it’s assisted, punishing, or something more specific than either.

Scope honestly. A single, well-considered fail state — one hazard, one checkpoint policy, one moment of juice — analyzed and justified in depth outperforms an ambitious system nobody had time to actually design.

What you submit

Either a small playable prototype (any engine or tool) or a fully specified paper design (diagrams, mechanics, and the same level of detail a prototype would demonstrate through play), plus a short written justification (500–800 words) connecting your decisions back to specific weeks of the course. You will also present it live in the week 12 session, in under three minutes.

The spec

The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.

submitted by the deadline, in the format named below
presented to the class in the week 12 session, in under three minutes
stands on its own — a reader who missed the presentation can still follow the design

How it is marked

Judged as a whole against the brief. A strong submission makes a specific, legible failure design decision and can explain why it made that decision rather than the alternatives the semester covered — the taxonomy, the checkpoint architecture, the assist debate, and the role of feedback and juice all remain live tools by this point, not obligations to cite. Scope that fits a playable prototype or a rigorously specified paper design both count; scope that promises more than a semester allows does not.