Games, Design and Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design

Chapter 10. Prototyping Your Game

The second step in the iterative cycle is prototyping. Depending on where you are in your design process, this might involve paper and markers, tennis balls and spatulas, functioning code, even a playable version of your game. The key idea with prototypes is giving form to your ideas.

Once you have a solid game concept, prototyping is the next step in the iterative design cycle. Prototypes turn ideas and concepts into something concrete that everyone on the team can evaluate. Prototypes do this by making ideas, motivations, and design values into tangible forms that can be played. This process of turning ideas into something material is where we see if seemingly excellent ideas are in fact excellent. Prototyping ...