Grading student projects

Hello,

So our school has a game design using unity class pilot this year and I am curious how people are grading projects or just sharing them in general.

I have a few ideas to try out, but I figured I may get some great ideas from people who have done it before here.

Thanks in advance

 

Project classes are always a huge pain. Two things. 1) if it's a first game design class, don't focus on a project. Teach and grade on the basics and _maybe_ have a small project where everyone gets full points if it's decent. B/C one group will do a hidden Object game (which is 95% art, in a non-art class), another will heavily mod a Unity demo project, a third will go all-in on an awesum demo using physics and ragdolls and triggers but it's just a tiny demo. It's super hard to make rules to grade that diversity.

2) For a real projects class, "grade" it in stages. Require a presentation early on of the project goals -- type of game, list of features and another list of what will be in the first demo (ex: basic combat, monsters spawn, no spells, no random dungeon gen). Require demos at a fixed date and then another list of goals. The Agile method works great for this -- not the long rules for software -- the thing where everyone works on What We Need Now For The Weekly Build. At the planning stage(?s) the instructor's approval is essentially "doing this much is an A". Of course, in the 2nd stage they might realize their 1st idea stinks, after seeing it in action, and want to swerve -- that's fine.