Arcade Game Maker Product Line – Scope

15 Pages·2003·0.18 MB·English

by  Systems Staff

Arcade Game Maker

Product Line – Scope

ArcadeGame Team

July 2003

Table of Contents
Overview 1
1.1 Identification 1
1.2 Document Map 1
1.3 Concepts 2
1.4 Reusable Components 2
1.5 Product line variation 5
1.6 Readership 2
2 Product Line Context 4
2.1 In Scope 4
2.2 Out of scope 5
3 Approach 7
4 References 8
CMU/SEI-2001-TR-001 i

Overview
1.1 Identification
The Arcade Game Maker Product Line will produce a series of arcade games. Each game is a
one-player game in which the player controls, to some degree, the moving objects. The
objective is to score points by hitting stationary obstacles. The games range from low
obstacle count to high.
1.2 Document Map
The Arcade Game Maker Product Line is described in a series of documents. These
documents are related to each other as shown in Figure 1. This map shows the order in which
the documents should be read for the first time. Once the reader is familiar with the
documents, the reader can go directly to the information needed.
This is the scope document. Its purpose is to define the boundaries of the product line. Design
and implementation decisions are made to address the full scope of the product line but with
no concern for any characteristics outside the product line.

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Figure 1- Document Map

1.3 Concepts
See the Glossary document for definitions of basic concepts.
1.4 Reusable Components
This document establishes the high-level context for work in the product line. In a product
line, components are designed to be reusable within the context of the product line. That is,
no attempt is made to make a component “as general as possible”. Each design decision is
made with regard to the extent of the products in the product line. The architecture further
refines the context defined in this document.
1.5 Readership
This document is intended to provide some level of information to all of the stakeholders in
the Arcade Game Maker framework. Managers will find the information needed to support
product planning. Architects will find the information necessary to support commonality and
2 CMU/SEI-2001-TR-001
variability analysis. Product developers will find the rationale for each product’s membership
in the product line.
1.6 Use in product production
This document is used in the earliest stages of product production. It is used when the
product production process seeks to determine whether it is feasible to build the proposed
product as part of the product line. The list of common features and the list of variations are
used to determine the fit between the proposed product and the product line. Later, assets
such as the architecture can be used to provide more detailed information about product fit
with the product line.
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2 Product Line Context
2.1 In scope products
The context of the Arcade Game Maker Product Line is illustrated in Figure 2. The two
games shown inside the circle constitute the current definition of the product line. Those
games outside the circle are out of scope and will not be constructed from the assets built for
the product line.

chess
Arcade Game Maker
Product Line
Pong checkers
poker PinBall
Brickles
Tic Tac Toe
Bowling

Figure 2 - Context diagram

Each system in the product line has the following features:
?? single player
?? graphical view of game
?? animation driven games
?? moving and stationary objects
?? rules about the interaction of game elements
The games may have multiple different players but only one is active for a particular match.
For example, having a computer player is useful for testing purposes.
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2.2 Product line variation
The principle variations in the Arcade Game Maker Product Line are:
?? the rules of the game
?? the types and numbers of pieces
?? the behavior of pieces.
?? The physical environment in which the game operates
These are elaborated in the product line architecture document.
2.3 Out of scope products
The Arcade Game Maker product line does not address traditional “board” games. A
framework for this type of game was provided in [McGregor 92] but is out of scope for this
product line. These games contain an element of strategy that is not included in the current
product line. Board games usually allow multiple players.
Strategy games are also out of scope. Dungeons and Dragons and other more recent games
will not fit in this product line.
2.4 In scope features
Each product will provide the user with the ability to interact with the game and to control
some portion of the action. The product will operate according to the usual rules of each
game. The product will provide a graphical representation of the state of the game.
2.5 Out of scope features
Each product will rely on an existing operating environment to provide control over
hardware.
2.6 Analysis
The above sections have provided a first level of data capture for scooping the product line.
Here we take a more detailed look using an attribute/product matrix. As the product line
expands into commercial products, we should do a more in-depth analysis using a technique
such as PuLSE-ECO [DeBaud 00].
Table ATTRIBUTE
Freeware arcade games Commercial PC games Commercial wireless games
display standard bitmaps vector graphics WAP Bitmap
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interaction mouse/buttons pointing devices/buttons buttons
game pieces simple icons dynamic icons dynamic icons
scoring high scores stored locally local storage/scores shared with scores stored on
subscription network/subscription
required

6 CMU/SEI-2001-TR-001