Update: Warmups finished , A book of lenses on prototyping etc

Reached the end of the InsurgentX tutorials. Was a nice warmup.

Spend most of the time yesterday trying to find the game elements that reoccur in each game type. Wikipedia lists a ton of genres but I think that most genres contain reoccuring elements. So I've done a lot of brainstorming, mindmapping and sketching on A4's to find them. Considering comparing screenshots to find recoccuring elements.

I've discovered that I kinda already know why you should prototype and think I have a good idea of what method to use when. I just haven't put this into practise yet. My biggest obstacle to overcome is definitly the technical and practical hurdle and not so much the theoretical.

I had some spare hours today that used to read the chapter about iteration in 'The Art of Game Design: A book of Lenses' by Jesse Schell'.  I was pleased to read that he also states that the primary focus of prototyping is to answer questions. He has a lot of pointers on what to consider when designing/building prototypes so I'm reading through those.

As I try to find recoccuring game core elements among genres I did discover that it would be best if I focussed on 1 genre that interests me the most for the time being and then implement/rebuild the flexibility of the environment afterwards. I was kinda planning to do that anyway.

There are 2 types of games that really interest me at the moment. They are a platforming environment & top down environment suited for simple multiplayer gameplay. I want to explore fairly geometric simple multiplayer gameplay. Easy to learn hard to master.

The other is exploring expressive concepts through abstract visuals. This is the arty side of mine.

The arty side is the most experimental which doesn't just focus on fun, the multiplayer side likes to make fun engaging games in which the player can grow in skill over time.

First I need to learn to build game elements though before I can really focus on expression or engagement. I think starting off with editor script tutorials by the walkerboys and doing the platformer tutorial would be best. During these tutorials I'll learn how to make a spritemanager in unity and build the 1st level of mariobros1. They also cover how to go about designing a tool which should be really helpfull when I design the elements to extend Unity with.

I'm also considering designing multiple simpel prototypes geared towards top down multiplayer and platforming gameplay and build those on set days that I reserve for experimentation. That way I don't just follow instructions but put them in practise aswell.

So in short: Lot's of things to decide but I think I'm heading in the right direction and I'm on schedule.

My own thoughts on prototyping

Started of this week doing the InsurgentX tutorials to warmup and it's definetly getting me in the right mindset. Especially started to see that classes aren't that complex. It's more the hierarchy that's confusing to me. About 3/4 into the series. 

I've done some webresearch. I found a bunch of links but I notice that I really needed to inventarize my own knowledge because a lot sounds familiar.  So below are my thoughts on prototyping.

What I know

Figured it’s best if I try to inventarize what I know about prototyping myself while doing research.

I’ll start of with what methods that are know to me. Then I’ll talk about the use of prototyping as I know of.

So first of the methods. For gamedevelopment 3 methods are known to me.

1  Paper Prototyping	Using pen and paper the core mechanics are tested quickly
2. Physical Prototyping	Through physical  behaviour and rules game play is acted out. Uses physical ‘dummy’ objects to simulate ingame objects
3. Digital Prototyping	A quick messy digital version is made containing the core features

Each method has it’s advantages and disadvantages  

Paper Prototyping 

Is usely the one designers start off with since it requires the least technical investment. This means the designer can focus on the design itself and avoid distraction by technical bugs.

This approach is limited though. While it’s very usefull to test quick game rules the rules are changed to test how the game plays. This means there is a difference in game rules and can cause differing results from the actual game.

Also because it’s paper the concept get’s throw in a set of boardgame rules. This can cause players to overthink their actions and this may not be what you want for a digital game.

Physical Prototyping
A very free form of prototyping. Players utilize their own body feature which means the only thing that needs to be built are props for the players to use. These often don’t require much work. This method makes heavy use of the players imagination to fill in the gaps though.

Physical and Paper prototyping are usefull at the start to get view of the players decision making.

Videogames are interactive and evolve over time though and often have a lot of things going on at the same time at once. Distilling the game in paper form can mean a lot of manual calculation is required. This disrupts the play experience. The more complex ideas can get dropped pretty quickly due to this. And this might not be fair.

Tools: Blocks, Physical Props, Imagination

Digital prototypes
Since these are ‘simple games’ this form get’s closest to the actual game and is thus most representational for the real game experience. They tend to take longer to make then paper or physical methods though.

The uses of prototyping
Prototyping really means testing to me. Testing is mainly done because there are questions. Prototypes are used to find answers to these questions. So prototyping has 2 main uses in my opion.

1.   To answer  existing questions
2.    To find new questions

Designers can have different type of questions.

What prototypes should consist of
Prototypes should focus on answering the questions the designer has about the concept. This means the designer needs to distill the game to it’s core and find the most fast, effective way to produce different results.

Prototypes should allow for fast tweaking. If option 1 doesn’t work option 2 might and maybe option 3.

What should be forgotten when prototyping:

All unnecessary features that aren't necessary to answer the question. These just take up time and distract. Examples are complicated animation features, particle effects, rendering etc.

To be continued 

Introduction

Greetings,

Welcome to my game prototyping blog.

I am Joeri van Ees, and I'm a student at the Utrecht School of the Arts in Hilversum, The Netherlands. I study Gamedesign and aspire to work as a gamedesigner at a company after I graduate. I have found that fast efficiënt analog and digitial prototyping skills are increasingly becoming a requirement for gamedesigners to prove their concept ideas these days. Since I lack experience with these means I decided my graduation project might be the best free time I get to get down and dirty with these methods and learn to overcome my biggest obstacle, actually building what I design. I am no programmer by trade though so there's a lot I need to learn and frankly code kinda scares me :(.

For my graduation project I will be researching and learning protoyping methods for games. I will be looking at tools like GameMaker, Unity3D and Paper Prototyping methodes. The goal is to become very proficient at protyping by the end of the project and know as much of the ins and outs as I can. This should help me when I have to test a game idea quickly for either a client or personal projects.

I will start off by looking for the most common returning elements in games (elements you need to build no matter what the game is). I will then attempt to design and build these elements in Unity 3D using Components, Classes and Editor scripts. I will be working in a Room with 6 other gamedesigners that are all doing projects that focus on gameplay. So I'll try to learn as much as I can from their methods of prototyping.

I'll try to share as much of my insighs as I can and I hope the information is usefull to outsiders.

If all goes well I will try make these elements a flexible as possible so you can quickly throw them together and test game ideas. Kinda the digital equivalent of a box of building blocks.

This blog is meant to track my progress, show my progress to outsiders and to stay on track and time. I will also use this to think of what to do next so be prepared for lot's of thoughts flying around in the posts to come.

First things first though and that's getting familiar with Unity3D again, planning  and ordering the tasks for the weeks to come and setting up my projects structure so I stay neatly organized.

I'm looking forward to this and I hope it will all work out in the end.

I have found some video tutorials by InsurgentX. They show you how to build a RPG environment. Since these environments make heavy use of classes they should be a good warmpup for my project. They seem to start off with the basics again though but it can never hurt to refresh those again.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/107593-InsurgentX-s-Unity-Advanced-Tutorials

Enjoy the blog!