The Student Innovation Project (SIP) is what the senior Capstone project at the University of Advancing Technology is called.

It is a multi-semester project where students need to come up with something innovative in the field of their major. The projects have to be approved by that student’s Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The SMEs are professors who teach those subjects. When an SME turns down a project, it could be for multiple reasons such as it not being innovative enough, not being thought out enough, or that the student is thinking too big and should make the project smaller and focus on one specific element. Students are allowed to work in groups for their SIPs, but they have to have their own innovation if they do. With that being the case, some students will work together to do bigger projects with more innovations.

As a Game Design major, I chose to do my SIP around an improvement and innovation that I think would make the tower defense games that I love even more fun to play. Below is an overview and my presentation video that I gave to the approval board in order to graduate.

Counter Balance Upgrading System

The Counter Balance Upgrading System is a new upgrade system that will force players to strategize on the fly and increase replay ability for the levels in the tower defense genre.

The system removes the need for currency in upgrades for towers and instead makes it so that players can sacrifice a decent portion of their health for the upgrade or give the enemy a semi-random buff to the most recently spawned enemy unit on the field.

If after watching the video below you would like more information on my idea, please leave a comment on the video or I can answer them privately through my contact page.