Maze Game pre production unit 1

sources of finance
budgets.
time constraints
competitors
relevance
opportunity
Release date
availability
personnel
contributors
expert personnel
size
skill level
facilities
soft ware
hard ware
materials
sources
concepts
research
locations
settings
codes of practise
legal
regulatory bodies

I have four weeks to produce my maze game, this is the deadline set by Wayne for this assignment.
As this is part of a college course all software and hard ware will be provided free, but if I had to buy it the total costs would be:

PC- £1000 (hardware - ... )
Game Maker-£0
Adobe complete pack-£1200
audacity-£0

I would estimate the budget for soft/hard ware at about £2200. This is all in house equipment, all in one facility ( the college ) as it is only a 2D platform game and will not need dedicated studios and facilities for each aspect of the game ( graphics, sounds etc).

As this is my assignment, I will be the only one working on it but I may get friends to contribute music clips if they play an instrument. I f this were for a company, I would consider a art and concept team, voice actors or musicians and a program and coding team although they would be small as the game is not that technical or advanced and would not want to make the budget for the personnel exceed its efficiency and the estimated profit.

Again, because this is a college assignment I will not be going off site to locations so I will be using images on the internet for inspiration and reference. If this were a real game to be sold, I would want to go to locations of castles and dungeons around the UK to get inspiration and use images I get for reference in sprite and level design. e.g. Edinburgh castle as it is extremely old and from the ere that my game is based on, plus it has great fortresses, turrets and views of the surrounding towns and villages. Another example is Warwick castle dungeons and the London dungeons for reference to cells, torture tools and the atmosphere in these deep dark places. Travel to these places by plane would be about...

I will not need any financial contribution as all of the equipment is free, but if I was developing this game outside of college I still would not need financial contributions as a games designer makes on average £40,000 per year at entry level (http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/video-game-programmer-salary/) and the total costs of this project is .....

To research my target audience, again because this is a assignment I would have to use secondary research on the age and gender of the players of 2D platformers, maze games and who are interested in the medieval ere. I have looked at previous surveys and sales from past platformers and internet forums and have come to the conclusion that: