8 - How to Prevent Unnecessary Effort in the First Prototype (Part 1)
In this post, I’ll share my approach to creating a prototype, the missteps I made, and what I would do differently next time. There were several areas where I invested extra effort that turned out to be unnecessary.
It's widely advised that a prototype should be inexpensive, easy to discard if it doesn’t work, and simple to modify when changes are needed. Prototyping is an ongoing process of swapping out components, refining mechanics, and gradually adding new elements. Additionally, while testers should be challenged, you don’t want them to struggle with a game that barely functions—so ensuring basic playability before inviting testers is crucial.
In this first part, I’ll address the bolded points above. The remaining topics will be covered in one or more future blog posts.
Designing a Flexible Prototype
Some aspects of prototyping make implementation easier, while others present challenges. For instance, card and dice games are relatively simple to prototype—blank dice can be used to create custom faces, and game boards can easily be printed. Figures and cardboard standees are trickier but can often be sourced from existing games. Some games—like Magical Friends—rely heavily on visual elements for clarity. While prototypes don’t need to look polished, when a game features numerous distinct creatures on the board, maintaining clear visuals during testing becomes essential.
Here’s a mistake I made: I used images from the internet for my prototype. While this made it visually appealing right away, it created major limitations in testing. Copyright restrictions meant I couldn’t easily share the prototype or post photos online. If I were to develop another game, I’d either purchase a set of affordable stock images or find freely available graphics that I could legally use. Today, I’d likely generate these images using AI— when I created Magical Friends, tools weren’t as advanced. Ultimately, spending excessive time hunting for the perfect visuals isn’t necessary—at this stage, aesthetics should take a backseat to functionality.
An early prototype from 2019
A Good Approach: Avoid Creating 40 Different Creature Cards (with Standees) for Your First Prototype
For initial tests, a smaller number of creature cards is more than sufficient. Even if a full set is necessary to play the game properly, early tests can be conducted with shorter rounds. At this stage, the primary goal is to determine whether the game mechanics work and are enjoyable. Additionally, modifying something that affects all 40 cards requires an enormous amount of effort.
I’ve created prototypes for other game ideas before—some of which didn’t work—and I’m grateful that the effort put into Magical Friends wasn’t wasted. However, testing continued to be time-consuming, because I was reluctant to take a step back and simplify the prototype (which, in this case, primarily meant making it look less visually appealing).
That said, having a more elaborate prototype isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For testers, it can be nice to have a somewhat polished version even in the early stages. The real challenge is that modifying materials takes significantly more time than coming up with actual improvements for the game itself.
Despite all this, I’ll be keeping future prototypes simpler!
I have plenty more to say on this topic, but this post would become overwhelming. So, expect more soon! Do you have any thoughts or questions? Feel free to comment or reach out to me.
