Mastering Game Prototyping: Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

most important: protoypes are vertical, not horizontal. a slice of every layer, not a finished layer

You said you were a beginner in game dev, but you are clearly articulating wisdom that not many beginners compartmentalize early on.

good reminder about implementing, failing fast/receiving feedback, and iterating. back to development!!

Thanks for the helpful video, I look forward to seeing your work and wish you good luck on your journey!

Have several prototypes in parallel. One for gameplay, one for visuals like animation or post processing, one for the menu element and inventory mechanics for example. Its much easier to test and iterate on those if the project does not depend on all the other elements of the game. Other elements could be mocked if needed. Once all main "modules" are sufficiently usable, you can assemble them into a combined project, implementing them in a clean way. That then is the basis of the game.

Thank you for the clear and concise guide to prototyping. If you're still looking for testers feel free to reach out.

Great stuff. The game art is looking great so far.

Hey! I would love to test this game! It looks awesome! Also, I've really enjoyed following your growth and story. Reminds me a bit of myself.

thank you, helps a lot

Good stuff! It's really logical to create prototype in order to separate good concepts from bad ones, unfortunately we're emotional creatures and a lot of times we ignore this in order to create our "dream game" 🤣. This a good reminder to stay grounded and trust the players more than your own fantasies.

I could test it if it works on steam deck...great advice too!

Fellow new-ish Unity dev here. Interested in testing if you still have that need.

This was really helpful. How could this be done for a first person role playing game like fallout? It's not exactly a first person shooter, since fighting is only one portion of the game play. I'm thinking since it would involve crafting, building, fighting and quests, i should make a prototype for each mechanic, but also one that involves all of them to make sure they're balanced?

It depends on the type of game. If it's a narrative game, then a basic prototype is not quite as feasible (you can still do it, but you have to provide a little more content than an action/arcade/etc game). I am going to do something similar, starting with a text adventure progressing in stages until a fully graphical, animated point-and-click adventure game.

Hi, good open and honest ideas, thanks. But not too sure about this; as you say most genres have a set of core mechanics and it may be fairly easy to program them and test them without them being much fun or the sign of a good game to come. But isn't the key the differentiator, what really makes your game fun and what is the perceived progress process that will keep it fun? Share too much too early and a good tester will see a way forward to make a better version more quickly and this could undermine your game. Be careful out there, this is a 'dog eat dog' world. Now I must get back to my new unshared prototype: 'Hungry fish!'. Good luck.

What about a strategy game, wouldn’t it have plenty of game mechanics so how do I isolate the core of it for a prototype, It will either take too long to make the prototype then I will have to scrap it so high wasted effort or I will burnout due to the amount of game mechanics I need to build and then if by some miracle if I finish the prototype and it is validated, I have to refine and fix my code which will be almost the same amount of effort as in making the prototype. Likely, I will give up either way so what should I do?

I agree that prototype is good to start but the best is having a deadline, the game will have to be finished no matter what

That looks nice, reminds me of My Aquarium, I am also a solo developer and know how hard gamedev can be.That deserves a sub and a like. Will you check out my prototype?

You don't need to prototype something that you have seen work in a zillion games. Characters can jump onto platforms in video games -- no prototype necessary. If you make a platformer, a significant effort will go into perfecting the jump mechanisms, and a prototype really won't help -- you may as well start on the first iterations of the final product. Camera-tracking always needs refinement as a project progresses. Again, don't even bother with a prototype -- it's just one of those things that needs fussing with until it's right, and you won't know if it's right until you see it at the tail end of the project.

I disagree.. i think that if you want to learn how to code games, making prototypes could be a good way to do that.. but games are more than the code.. if you want to be a solo dev, you'll news code, art, sound, level design, story, character design,ect.. the only way to build those muscles are to work them.. i think beginners should do as many game jams as possible to practice every aspect of game dev..