Im going into my final year at university, and have got to think up a project which will be a major contribution to my final result. The project is open-ended so anything goes. This project will go on for 9 months, when it is handed in. Basically because I want to do game programming when I leave, I though that something game RELATED might be a good. I''m not stupid so from the start I know this wont be a fully fledged latest 3D Shooter, but I''m open to any ideas. I want to do something in C++, so it will be object-orientated. I can use DirectX / OpenGL / Glide, I have a fair bit of knowledge of all of these API''s and help isn''t too hard to find on these subjects. I also wanted to include some data-structures such as BSP trees, hash-tables etc.. The project must have enough depth to be a degree project, and also be enough to keep me occupied for 9months-ish. Any way thanks for any ideas anyone gives.

I produced a game for my senior project just this past year. Mine was also 9 months long. I did a 2D sprite based game where you play a "Thug". It was online so several people could play. You basically walked around a little world and tried to beat other people up. You could use guns, knives, fists, and feet. You could also drink some beer - at which point we ripped off some Homer Simpson belching sounds (this was my favorite part of the game). You could also remote-insult someone. A random insult would play on their machine (like "your momma hits harder than you!") I used a digital camera to get all of my images... all of the objects in the world, splash screens, and etc... It worked out very nicely. I had no 3D experience at this point.

I have a bit of advice... you will get burned out and extremely sick of your project (after all, your not getting paid $$$ =). You will settle for things that may not have been your original idea. So i suggest not to aim low, but to be realistic when coming up with your game idea. Remember you will have other classes and whatnot. I got burned out in the final few months and canned alot of my ideas. I also suggest following the standard - Conception -> Game Design -> Technical design / req analysis -> Implement -> Test cycle. My professors were more impressed with my process of developing the game rather than the end result (of course my degree was Computer Engineering, it may be different in CS).

Oh, and another bit of REALLY IMPORTANT advice... choose your partners wisely. I had tons of modivation to do the game but it turned out that my partners did not share my motivation... this drags you down - both mentally and production wise. Most students want to do as little as possible. I discovered this.

Anyway, you can check out the game my group wrote at:
www.eng.uc.edu/~bhoffer/thugz/thugz.html. You can download the stuff but unfortunately the server is never up so you cant really play unless you download the server (it is UNIX - SunOS). But you can look at the screen shots. Email me if you want the source code... hofferbj@email.uc.edu

hope this long winded reply helps.

Brian H