here is my honest adivce when under serious time constraints -
Only plan to do that which pertains directly to the assignment. Anything more will be impressive, true, but will it demonstrate proficiency? This is how i assess students; how well they performed within the goals of the class. If the assignment is to do a realistic rendering of an object in black and white and the student turns in a beautiful non-objective expressionist colorbomb, the most they will get for the assignment is a C, and to be honest i find that generous.
Basically, Assignments are given for the purpose of testing your understanding of a concept or list of concepts. Final assessments are typically intended to test the absolute reaches of your ability to function within those parameters.
If you chose to dedicate time to an item that is not one of the aforementioned concepts, it is impossible that you gave the other concepts 100% of your attention. Therefor, do not pursue them unless you feel that you have already exceeded the standards in the required fields, or you have reached a point where you simply do not know how to improve, despite not meeting the standards.
Since you talk about how you hope programming will improve your grade, it is highly likely that you have not exceeded the standards yet in the required fields.
IF you submit a project which does not meet the standards, regardless of how many extra things you include, the (honest) assessment of your work would say that you have not earned an A in the reequired fields. If you do not meet the standards and get an A anyway, then the teacher has cheated you out of an important lesson.*
Basically, focus on design and presentation before you think about coding and other things. You can make mockups and "trailers" far faster than you can make an interactive game. Once those are done, see if you have time left, and SERIOUSLY consider if even that extra time couldnt be spent embellishing the items one which you are actually assessed.
* - let all here who have submitted to a client something different from what they hired you for and been successful say "Aye"