Rapid Prototyping

The more formal approach to game design

Iterative process

Last week we looked at the informal approach to game design. This week, we take a look at a game development approach that’s more formal, with clearly outlined steps designed to encourage you to consider your game design more broadly.

An iterative process, is a commonly adopted cyclical method you can use to approach designing a game.
Image from Wikipedia – a typical Iterative Development Model

  1. The Planning and Requirements steps are a mission statement of sorts. You’ll need to establish the known goals for your game, what you’ll need to build it.
  2. Next, you design your game, perhaps drawing a paper prototype of it before you start building.
  3. Once built, you test the game.

Seems a little like the informal design we explored last week doesn’t it?

Well yes, it is like the informal process, except for a few key factors.
  • Firstly, you establish clearly up front what your goals are, and then with each round of testing and evaluation, you return and revisit those goals. There’s still a healthy amount of trail and error involved, but this method allows for more formal reflection.
  • As each cycle is completed, you further refine your statements established in the first step. This is often necessary as your hopes for how the game will function, and the reality of how the game actually plays, are often a little different. You may find that as you progress, some of your initial aspirations for the game are either unnecessary, unachievable, or require a number of improvements.
  • With a more formal approach, your known goals will always been front of mind as you progress with development. Not only will you be considering whether they are being met with each new cycle, you’ll be determining your games re-playability each time you begin testing.

Rapid Prototyping

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml

Whether you’re taking a formal or informal approach to design, building something quickly introduces challenges that will be present with either method. If you have a time limit ahead of you, like our challenge last week, there are a number of factors you’ll want to consider:
  • Choose a theme that underlies your game. It may be for example, that a version of the universally known schoolyard game of tag is the underlying structure, predator and prey. Or, you might decide that the game centres around audible triggers. A theme will help give your game the underlying structure it needs to be engaging, and you’ll save time during the games development if you identify it early on.
  • Don’t dwell too long on an idea that’s not working out – try something new, start something different and come back to your original idea later.
  • Just because you want to build something quickly, doesn’t mean you can skip important steps. If your game hasn’t been well thought out, if the actual experience of playing the game is less than engaging, no amount of mood lighting, music or clever use of colours will hide that fact.
  • Just because you want to build something quickly doesn’t mean you should ignore the mood lighting, music or clever use of colours! A game that looks and feels polished will be more absorbing. It won’t save a badly designed game, but it can greatly enhance a well considered one.
  • Embrace failure! We learn from our mistakes, it’s as simple as that. The more you embrace your failures as golden opportunities for learning, the faster you’ll develop as a game designer.
  • Never underestimate the power of the simple game. Your game doesn’t have to have a thousand different variables to be fun. PacMan and Pong are great examples; despite having been around for years now, new versions of these games keep emerging because they are simply engaging … or is that engagingly simple? Simple games can be completely and utterly absorbing, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be fun.
  • Having an end goal will not only make your game more engaging, you’ll find it easier to work toward a target.  I’ve noted a number of RPG attempts in particular built with Kodu that have suffered from this problem. You wander here, you wander there, with no clear idea of what you should be doing. Sure the terrain and mood lighting are impressive, but what am I doing here? People get bored fast, so make sure the goals are clear up front.