Quick thought exercise: How would you prototype games that already exist? The idea here is to get a better idea for myself how I should go about prototyping my own game ideas. To me, one of the most important parts of prototyping is coming up with a short list of questions to answer. The questions, ideally, are more objective than subjective but this is often difficult because you might be trying to test whether a certain mechanic is “fun”, rather than whether it’s technically possible to create. Coming up with these questions is hard, so I thought I’d practice on games that turned out very successful.

Different game genres will require different prototypes and vary in complexity as well. For this post, first I came up with a list of genres. Then, a couple of popular games for each genre. Last, I tried to think of the core mechanics for each game and what questions I would try to answer to prototype the mechanics.

Do you have better questions for any of my examples below? If so, leave a comment.

Arcade

Pong

  • Can I make controls that feel good for the player?
  • Can I make an AI that doesn’t win easily but isn’t useless either?
  • Can I make unrealistic but compelling physics for the ball?

Space Invaders

  • Can I make it increasingly difficult but not impossible to fend off waves of enemies that descend toward the player?
  • What’s a good number of enemies per level?
  • How fast should the enemies move?

Tetris

  • Can I make the pieces rotate while they fall (and “feel good” controls)?
  • Will “random” pieces make it possible for the player to win indefinitely?
  • Is falling speed a good difficulty progression?
  • Is it satisfying to clear a row or multiple rows at once?

Traditional Platformer

Super Mario Bros

  • Can I invent physics that aid gameplay and aren’t frustrating?
  • Is jumping on an enemy simple enough for the player to be a common part of gameplay?

Commander Keen 4

  • Is it fun to shoot enemies rather than jump on them?
  • What kinds of levels can I create with the addition of the pogo stick? Is it significantly different than just jumping and climbing?
  • Does the ability to hang from ledges make the physics less frustrating?

First-Person Shooter

Doom

  • Can a mouse be used to aim and shoot multiple enemies on screen quickly?
  • Should we allow the player to be hit once or multiple times without dying? Can he heal?
  • Are different enemy types a good difficulty progression? What about different weapons?

Counter-Strike

  • Can I create a compelling realistic shooter?
  • Can I use different weapon types in the same game and have a balanced game?
  • Should the current weapon affect movement speed?
  • Should the player have access to all weapons, or have to unlock them somehow?
  • What if movement speed changed accuracy?

Call of Duty 4

  • Is it viable to pursue killstreak unlocks? How many killstreaks should there be?
  • Can I create a balanced game where different players use different classes?
  • What if your stance (stand, crouch, prone) changed accuracy?
  • What if I could see other players on a radar?
  • Can different game modes other than deathmatch be used on the same map?

Real-Time Strategy

Starcraft

  • Can I create a compelling AI when there are so many decisions to make?
  • Should I create multiple races to choose from or just one?
  • Can I achieve a balanced game while also keeping it interesting and more complex than Rock Paper Scissors?

(For something as complex as Starcraft, there were probably many prototyped ideas)

RPG

Pokemon

  • Can I make a turn-based fighting scene fun and strategic?
  • Do I feel compelled to catch as many unique Pokemon as I can?

Diablo II

  • Can I use the mouse to both fight and move?
  • What kinds of stats should the player have?
  • Is grinding for experience and items fun?

Casual

Stardew Valley

  • Should the dungeon be procedurally generated?*
  • Is it fun to care for the crops?
  • Do I feel rewarded from exploring and talking to other NPCs?

* I’ve read about SV being created. This was originally part of the design and was cut out.

Conclusions

After this exercise, I learned that I came up with two basic types of questions:

  • Is this mechanic viable? Does the player like using it?
  • Should I do this OR that?

I’m not sure if these are actually the right types of questions to ask, and I still found it pretty challenging to come up with good questions for well-established games, especially for the more complicated games.

As I filled in questions for more games, I actually got less confident that I was asking the right questions. I’m still questioning whether my approach to prototyping is right. I’m used to working within a lot of constraints and finding a solution. Finding the constraints is definitely a different way of thinking and I imagine will take lots of practice.