LAFS Game Design 7 - Prototyping

Level 7
David Mullich
Game Design 1
The Los Angeles Film School

What is Prototyping?
Prototyping is the creation of a working model of your
idea that allows you to test its feasibility and make
improvements to it.
Game prototypes, while playable, usually only include
a rough approximation of the artwork, sound, and
features.
Their purpose is to allow you to focus on a small set
of the game’s mechanics and see how they function.

Prototype
Create a prototype that answers the questions at hand.
A prototype is an early playable version of the game,
section of game, or game system.
A prototype, whether paper
or electronic, should be:
• Playable
• Quick to Make
• Easy to Change

Types of Prototypes
A single project might require a number of
different prototypes.
 Physical Prototypes
 Visual Prototypes
 Video Prototypes
 Software Prototypes

Rapid Prototyping
Digital prototyping is often more effective when it is
done in small, fast, throwaway projects.
When you pose a question about some aspect of
your gameplay, come up with a potential solution
and then build a quick and dirty model of that
solution to see if it will work.
A good rapid prototype makes a testable claim and
provides actionable learning about that claim.

Board Games
Many video game designers
started out as board game
designers, and many video
games are derived from board
games.
The designers or programmers of
these games used the paper-
based originals to figure out what
would work electronically.

Physical Prototypes
Physical prototypes are
the easiest type of
prototype for most game
designers to construct on
their own.
They are typically created
using slips of paper,
cardboard, and other
household objects.

Benefits of Physical Prototypes
 Allows you to focus on gameplay rather than
technology
 Making changes is faster, allowing for more
iterations
 Allows for nontechnical team members to
participate in the design process at a very high
level
 Allows for a broader and deeper
experimentation process simply because it can
be done without major cost or use of resources

How would you prototype the game
Battleship?
And, by the
way, this picture
is so wrong in
so many ways.
Prototype Example

So, you might end up with
something like this:
What rules
would you
modify and
how would you
implement
them?
Prototyping Battleship

Prototyping A First Person Shooter
Although a physical prototype of
an FPS can’t help you understand
the fluid process of running,
aiming and shooting in a 3D
environment, it can help you
understand the tactical issues of
weapon balance, territory control,
etc.

Prototype a first-person shooter using paper
and other physical items.

Digital Prototyping
A digital prototype extends the design work
done for the physical prototype and allows you
to test the essence of your game in its intended
format.
A digital prototype has:
 Elements needed to make them functional
 Minimal art and sound
 Incomplete gameplay

Reasons To Make A Digital Prototype
 Answering game design or technical
questions
 Establishing an effective production
pipeline
 Communicating your vision to your team
or a publisher

Building The Digital Prototype
1. Foundation: Build a representation of your
core gameplay
1. Structure: Prioritize structural elements to
add to your gameplay. Focus on rules over
features
 Features: Attributes that make the game richer (like
new weapons)
 Rules: Modification to the game mechanics that
change how the game works (like win conditions)

Building The Physical Prototype
3. Formal Details: Add the necessary rules
and procedures to make it a fully
functional game. Isolate each rule, test
it, remove it, add another, test it, repeat.
3. Refinement: Now examine the details,
and add ideas for features that came up
during testing but were not essential

Building The Physical Prototype
5. Dramatic: Add story, graphics, art.
5. Dynamic: Balance the attributes,
behavior and relationships of
components.

Core Gameplay Mechanic
The actions that a player repeats most often
while trying to achieve the game’s overall
goal. This is the foundation of your game.
While the meaning an consequences of
what a player does changes over the course
of a game, the core actions remain the
same from beginning to end.

Core Gameplay Examples
 Warcraft: Players build and move units on a map in
real time with the intent of destroying opposing units
in combat
 Monopoly: Players buy and improve properties with
the goal of charging rent to other players who land on
them during the course of play
 Diablo: Players battle monsters, seek treasure, and
explore dungeons in an attempt to amass wealth and
become more powerful
 Super Mario Bros: A player controls Mario (or Luigi),
making him walk, run, and jump, while avoiding traps,
overcoming obstacles, and gathering treasure

Prototyping Game Mechanics
Game mechanics are discrete features of the
formal aspects of the game.
When prototyping game mechanics, keep it
simple and focus on your core mechanic.
Do not try to integrate all of your questions
about the game into a single prototype, at least,
not at first.

Prototyping Game Mechanics
Gameplay prototypes need not be stand-
alone programs.
Often the questions you will have about your
mechanics will involve some kind of number
crunching that could be tested using Excel
spreadsheets.

Pro Tips
Stop thinking about whether your game is fun to play,
and start thinking about whether it is fun to play with.
 Make sure your mechanics are fun to play even if
there are no goals.
 Make sure that when people see yur game, they
want to start interacting with it, even before they
know what to do.

Control Schemes
Games are about three things: input, output and
mechanics. The controls are the input part of the
equation.
As a designer, you need to make sure you
understand the capabilities of the controller for the
platform you are designing to.
This means creating a kinesthetic prototype and
testing the controls until they are perfectly
integrated into your gameplay.

Control Schemes
When you have
decided how the
controls will work,
create a control table
to make sure you
have thought of
everything.
Key Action
Arrow keys Walk forward, back,
left, right
Shift key Run
CTRL or Left
Mouse
Shoot (hold for
continuous shooting)
A key Look up
Z key Look down

Feedback
Let the player know, through either visual or auditory
feedback, that their action has been accepted.
Audio feedback is very good for letting the player know
that input has been received or something new is about
to happen.
Visual feedback is good for giving precise data like the
exact status of a player’s resources or letting the player
know where his units are.

Pro Tips
 Intuitive interfaces give a feeling of control.
 Your controls should be easy master, not hard to
master.

Viewpoints
The digital interface for a game is a
combination of the camera viewpoint of the
game and controls that allow the user to
interact with within the system.
The viewpoints for the first video games were
mainly limited to text descriptions (Zork is an
example) but they could be very immersive.

Overhead View
This view is primarily used for digital maps and
digital versions of board games.

Side View
The side view is popular with arcade and puzzle
games, but it has its most influence with the side
scroller.

Isometric View
Popular in strategy games, construction simulations,
and role-playing games, this view gives the player
easy access to a lot of information.

First Person View
This view creates immediacy and empathy with
the main character, but limits the player’s overall
knowledge of his environment.

Third Person View
Adventure games, sports games and other
games that depend on a more detailed control of
character actions use this viewpoint.

Designing the User Interface
The game’s interface works together with the
controls and the viewpoint to create the game
experience, and it needs to be very
understandable. So, how will you incorporate
this information around your main view?

Form Follows Function
Instead of merely copying the user interface and
control scheme of a game that’s similar to yours,
go back and think about what’s special about
your idea.
Next try to come up with innovative ways of
representing the play value of that idea in both
the controls and interface.

Metaphors
Visual interfaces are graphical
symbols that help us navigate
through the game.
When you design your game,
you need to consider its basic
metaphor. For example,
objects that a role-playing
character must carry could be
placed in a backpack.

Visualization
Players often need to process a lot of
game information very quickly.
Try to visual the information so that they
know their general status at a glance.
“Natural Mapping” is when we use
cultural expectations – such as gas
gauges and temperature meters – to
cue us as to what the information
presented on the screen means.

Grouping Features
It is often best to group similar features together
visually so that the player always knows where to
look for them.

Consistency
Do not move your
features from one
area to another
when changing
screens or areas of
the game. Keep
meters and buttons
in the same place!

Questions To Ask Yourself
 What is the purpose of your interface?
 What viewpoint is the best choice for that
purpose?
 How much information should the player know
about the state of the game?

Designer Perspective: Bruce Shelley
G4 Icons Episode #15: Bruce Shelley

FOUNDATION PROTOTYPE
Your first prototype need only consist of the core
mechanic (action-purpose: for example, jump to
collect coins).
That mechanic should be supported by the necessary
controls to use the mechanic and visual feedback to
demonstrate the controls work.
Your main objective for this prototype should be to
confirm that the idea is a fun foundation for a game.

LAFS Game Design 7 - Prototyping

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