Size estimation of open source board-based software games

Software effort, schedule, and cost estimation has the highest utility at the time of inception. Since software size is one of the most important determinant of software effort (and, hence, cost), it is extremely beneficial to estimate size early. This early estimation of size is likely to result in better planning for projects dealing with the development of software games. Yet, despite its utility, a survey of the existing literature does not reveal a technique developed for this purpose. In particular, this paper focuses on the size estimation of open source board-based software games. A new software size estimation model is proposed for this sub-domain. In this research, 52 open source board-based software games are thoroughly examined and analyzed. After shortlisting potential predictors of software size for this sub-domain, forward stepwise Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) is used for model fitting. The results show that our model has reasonable estimation accuracy as indicated by the value of the coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.699). By providing a reasonably accurate estimate of software size early in the life cycle, our model makes it easier and simpler to plan and manage the development of open source board-based software games.