Project 1: Game programming and analysis

Business Case

You are an analyst at a “scrappy” online gaming company that specializes in remakes of last year’s fads.

Your boss, who runs the product development team, is convinced that Pokemon Go’s fatal flaw was that you had to actually move around outside. She has design mock-ups for a new game called Pokemon Stay: in this version players still need to move, but just from website to website. Pokemon gyms are now popular online destinations, and catching Pokemon in the “wild” simply requires browsing the internet for hours in the comfort of your home.

She wants you to program a prototype version of the game, and analyze the planned content to help the team calibrate the design.

Directions

Follow the question prompts and use base Python to create data stuctures and functions for the Pokemon Stay game.

When you’ve built the game components and loaded supplementary data, use statistics and probability to describe and refine the gameplay.

We will be looking for the following things:

For coding questions, Python code that gives the correct output for each question
For written questions, clear answers in Markdown cells

Requirements

Materials must be in a clearly commented Jupyter notebook.
Students should demonstrate proficiency with:
- Command of basic Python data structures
- Command of basic Python syntax and control flow
- Comfort with calculating basic descriptive statistics

Useful Resources

This draws heavily on Python concepts from the first couple days of class – review those lectures!
Depending on which Python version you use, you may need to watch out for unexpected division behavior.
For some questions, you may want to brush up on list comprehensions.

Project Feedback + Evaluation

For all projects, students will be evaluated on a simple 3 point scale (0, 1, or 2). Instructors will use this rubric when scoring student performance on each of the core project requirements:

Score	Expectations
0	Does not meet expectations. Try again.
1	Meets expectations. Good job.
2	Surpasses expectations. Brilliant!

For more information on how we grade our DSI projects, see our project grading walkthrough.