My first Prototype

My First Prototype and Playtest

1) What did my first prototype look like? 
Here it is in all of its glory. I had long since wanted to create a dice drafting game based on my experiences playing Kingsburg and To Court the King. Because this was my first game, I wanted the game to have a) broad appeal b) get more people to the table to play games with me. As you can see, my first prototype was made using construction paper, dice purchased from the Dollar Tree, and plastic coins from a party store (not pictured).

2) Impressions from my game group.

My Friday night game group has a really neat system where we rotate who gets to pick the game for the night. Every 4th week, I get to bring a game that I'm excited to play. On my night I surprised everyone by bringing Plunder and Duel, my prototype. Brittney, Michael, and Brian were so supportive and enthusiastic. After we played through the game once, we all brainstormed about what would make the game better. I STILL ask the same questions after every play test and they include:

a) What did you like?
b) What do you want to see more of?
c) What do you want to see less of?
d) What didn't work for you?
e) Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

In addition, as we're playing I bring a paper to take notes and jot down comments as they come up. I refer back to my comment sheet when I write up my playtest report to send to my game group.

3) What did my final prototype look like? My final prototype was created in Photoshop and Excel. I should say that when I started to make my game I had NO training in Excel. I would now recommend Excel as THE program to use in game design for use in making tiles, gameboards, chits, cards and so on. I saved documents I made in excel in pdf format and printed at Kinkos. I imagine designers from large companies have high quality printers, paper cutters and so on at their disposal...but I didn't have access to those items.

4) How many versions of my prototype did I make and what were the costs?
By the time I had a final prototype, I was at version 25. 25 different iterations!!! I started mid January, and produced my final prototype mid June. So the whole process, from conception to final prototype was 5 months. Every time I went to Kinkos I spent anywhere from 2 dollars to 20 dollars on the upper end if I had to reprint all of the components for a major overhaul.  Dice, coins, and the cardstock were also figured in...I estimated that I spent anywhere from 175 to 200 dollars when all was said and done.

5) Getting from the first Prototype to my last. What drove production and creativity?
Since I've began the process of creating games I now realize that the first step is always to JUST MAKE THE PROTOTYPE. Both success and failure are temporary. If your first version is terrible, at least you know what went wrong and can modify or start again using elements that you loved and ditching elements that you didn't. Don't be afraid to start. If you never start, you can never finish. I know this sounds overly simplistic, but this is truly the mentality that I took throughout my process. After each playtest, I combined all of my thoughts and the thoughts of the people that playtested with me and I typed up a full playtest report. I used to handwrite all my notes, but now I bring my laptop to playtest nights and update straight to the computer as a time saving mechanism.

6) Future Projects and Failed attempts. Since completion of Plunder and Duel, I made a tile placement game that I spent a considerable amount of time on that turned out to be a complete failure. I'm currently working on a pick up and deliver game set in 1950 New York which is going really well and made it successfully through a great first playtest this last weekend. My failed tile placement game taught me that failure and games that are simply "not fun" are part of the design process. Not every game will be a run away success. Keep cracking away at it and if you're first game sucks, keep trying. Your successful first prototype is always just one playtest away.