Question

You have been asked to develop an auto racing video game and have chosen to employ the prototyping technique. Explain, giving examples, what might occur at each phase of the process.

Answer 1

• Auto-Racing video game is a car racing game where few cars will start at the same point ,and the car to cross the finish line first will win the game.
• Since prototyping technique is to be used, hence I have to build a small prototype which, upon acceptance by my customer, will help me as an example to build the original game.
• First, we will have to do a feasibility study , where we have to estimate the cost and labor needed for the game building.  
• Next comes the requirements analysis, where the functional requirements will be select track,select car, select laps, start race, exit option, start from checkpoint option. Also there will be non-functional requirements which will be to check software portability ,etc. Constraints maybe there too.
• Next comes design, where I will be thinking of shaping all the requirements together.
• I need to design the arena first, where the racing is going to take place, and also the track.
• Then, I need to design few cars where one will be controlled by human and others will be controlled by computer.
• I will need to draw the uml(unified modelling language) diagrams and also the various dfds(data flow diagrams) to help the customer get an idea of how the things are going to take place.
• Then comes the coding part, where I can use the suitable language of my choice to prepare the game prototype.
• After coding, we have to test the prototype for its validation, so the prototype will be given to the customer for feedback.
• If the customer approves the model, then I will use the prototype to design the original game, along with other side features like google login/ guest login and register option with facebook connect ; database addition to save the records ; various types of cars with different properties like boost, acceleration etc ; also I can add a buying feature which will include buying top cars with best properties at a reasonable price(original money paid through credit card); adding more tracks with day/night feature and various weathers ; improving maps and bringing more obstacles to make the game tougher; changing looks of the avatars of players ; finally the leaderboard option to show where the user stands in competition to other users in terms of ranks, also I can construct gifts where user can earn valuables for their car or avatar modification, and after every race gifts can be provided for being in top 3(different gift for different position).
• If the customer doesnt approve of the model, then according to the feedback I will try to modify the basic model and then again give the prototype to the customer for testing, and this will go on until the customer finally approves the prototype.
• After creation of the game, the prototype will be destroyed.
• Maintainance may or may not be required, depending on customer's choice.

The above description contains the detailed steps of the software engineering process to be followed by any software engineer in order to prepare a software for a client.