@@Aarimous don't kill your darlings! nurture and protect them, and save them for a rainy day. removing a cool or interesting feature because of scope creep doesn't have to be the end for that feature, just use it somewhere else
I think it’s important to remember that prototyping doesn’t just apply to picking the game direction, but also to polishing features and mechanics in the game you decide to make.
You totally nailed the part about prototyping that is so hard to grasp: the feeling of wasting time! And its a mindset problem because we're not wasting time at all, we're actually saving time by not pursuing any prototypes that wouldn't work out. I'm in the same boat too, I'm glad you put into words what I needed to hear!
How the heck is it hard to grasp when the only way of figuring out if a game is fun to play, is by actually trying to build a working prototype and see? People who are getting into this sunk cost fallacy problem are in denial of what actually works.
@@PHeMoX Nobody likes trashing hours of creative work, that's the point. And the more you sink into it, the harder it gets. If it's easy to you, congratulations, you've figured it out.
I can't remember the term, it was something like Parallel processing, but the term isn't important, its the concept. Throughout history their have been great minds that come up with lot's of ideas but only published them later in life. For example, Charles Darwin began writing his theory of evolution years before publishing it. When he had his son, he shifted focus and started writing about the growth and development of children. He shelved what he had learned and what he was thinking, but returned to it later. If you haven't thought about it already, don't just throw out your other ideas once you get feedback; hold on to them. Also, while feedback is great, don't set aside your passion once you get it. It would suck to spend the next year developing a project that your community thinks is a cool idea, but you have no motivation for. Just food for thought that you made me think of.
(6:49) 🤯 That's it!!! I've had a few other ideas, but what they mentioned helped bridge those ideas! For a game idea I'm working on as a side project, I initially imagined wanting to create the gameplay mechanics first before the art, but over time that pivoted to wanting to create concept art first and any code later. I'm now imagining creating a 'tofu prototype’* first while also creating concept art, then I could start to mock up the UI and place a skeleton of that into the prototype, and eventually bring both together into an alpha build, before eventually bringing in the music and sound effects into a beta build. *Basically a prototype that has plain visual elements as placeholders, like plain white 3D cubes representing player characters (hence the term), built to test core gameplay mechanics.
Pitching to game streamers is the best idea ever. Not only you get feedback on the game but you also advertise it to a streamer that would very probably play it later on the stream. That's a next level thinking. I see that your armchair is training for Halloween already. It's doing a very good job - I kept getting more and more spooked as the video went on.
Is it really? I mean, individual streamers are probably as good for an idea evaluation as a bunch of fellow game developers on a Discord server, not to mention it is closer to a pitch rather than a playable prototype that answers more of your questions. Although, as a form of marketing, it is indeed a brilliant move.
I'm glad you figured this out! I was an active game developer between the Fez/Meatboy and the current era. XNA, Project Greenlight, Desura, PS3/4, 360/One, WiiU days. Prototyping wasn't as easy as it is now with the plethora of great game engines. It took a lot of time but it was the only way we worked and we knew the value in it. We had a "mantra" of finding the fun early. If we didn't find the fun we continued to prototype. Like Toby said, we've cut a lot of cool ideas. Nowadays I dabble in solo game development. It's only been prototypes and it's been a great way to learn new tech, mechanics, and ideas. All the luck to you with development and your TH-cam videos. It's neat to see the differences and similarities with the different eras of game development. Maybe someday we will meet.
oh i love that pitch deck to streamers idea. it's different but i ended up doing something similar, i asked, in a discord i thought would have some people interested in my game, but who i had not yet told about it, which of two pitches for the "flavor text" of the game (mostly identical mechanics under the hood) appealed to them more. nothing about the mechanics other than that it's strategy, and like single sentence description, and the one i was leaning towards won with twice as many votes as the other. i don't want to just pick the popular choices for everything but i think that doing a bit will point me in the right direction.
Useful insights! Probably useful to give yourself a time limit for initial prototyping though, e.g. 30 days or something, then run with whatever the most promising idea is. Otherwise you could just end up endlessly chasing new and shiny projects and never actually start, a problem lots of people struggle with. But yeah you need to prototype your mechanic ideas and see if they are actually fun. I started with an idea that sounded fun in my head, but turned out to be hot garbage. I'm glad I discovered it early and was able to pivot!
I am grateful for these insights to the industry that you offer through your videos. Hoping one day to be where you are as a developer, but as a current outsider to the realm of full-time game dev, these small portals into that world. Keep doing what you do, and I look forward to seeing what you create!
I've honestly been toying with the idea of creating an open source game project with developers...because working on projects alone is climbing a giant hill by yourself while watching the guy next to you climb the same hill, but life isn't free so that feels almost impossible. Imma go check out your prototypes now!
I just completed a four month course at the Indie Game Academy and the prototype stage is how we picked a game to make. We each made a paper or Unity prototype and then we all played them and picked one of them to make. We ended up making a Netcode for GameObjects multiplayer card game. It was pretty fun. We’re releasing a demo soon and then going to try to pitch the game to a publisher.
I'm working on the visual prototype. The next one should be the gameplay prototype. I think prototyping is the most enjoyable part of solo game development, and the hardest part is collecting feedback.
Look man, you quit your job to be an independent indie game developer. That’s a move I wouldn’t be brave enough to do myself. Creative thinking isn’t guaranteed to happen in the future, but I really respect your work and effort. I wish you the best of luck! ♥
I understand why most Devs go in looking for the game concept that will resonante. As for me, I couldn't care less. I am working on a game because for the last 20 years I needed this one particular game to exist and noone would make it. It's take it or leave it at this point!
I would just mention the "make many pots" principle of improving your craft. If you haven't heard of it, the idea is that if you make a bunch of things (making many pots, in this example), all while experimenting and exploring and trying different things, that it will ultimately end in a better outcome than working wholeheartedly only focused on a single perfect result (making a single perfect pot). I really believe in this principle and have taken it to heart, there's a decent Medium article about it if you want more context.
"Get feedback early from people". How many people are we talking about? I've no following so it's hard to get feedback if I don't invade peoples discord. I've a prototype but having a hard time to get actual feedback or inputs.
I feel you. Being alone makes doing things like these with abstract value hard to spend time on. If you're spending time on this, you're not spending it on your game. But spending it only on your game means you dont get the exploratory phase of trying stuff out.
Honestly this discussion can be tiring at times. It depends what your motivations are, as a dev. Do you just want to make games, in general, as a living? Sure prototype to your hearts content and find the idea that resonates with where people are and with the trends that are going on. but understand that this is prototyping for the sake of discovery and direction setting. But do you have an idea, an experience, or a vision that you feel strongly that others should take part in? Well, your prototyping is going to be vastly different and you're looking more at a verification process. How are my ideas being communicated? Are the connecting in the way that I want? are people getting the experience i'm intending and are they seeing the world i'm proposing. both are valid directions - but protoyping is just a tool, not a magic wand. Tools work best when you know what and why you're using them.
This is brilliant. Opened my eyes a bit. I'm getting into gamedev as a fun sidequest, to create the ideas I have, and a low pressure activity while I work on my mental health. Prototyping was always "see if you should throw the idea away or not", which isn't helpful, because imma do it anyways, even if it's bad. All knowing it's bad does is give be fuel to hate myself and make me want to give up on life more. Using prototyping to make sure the idea is being conveyed correctly is a new concept, and one I rather like. Making sure my goal is successful, that the illusions I need set up are working and effective towards the player's enjoyment. This should be the pinned comment.
one solution to the feeling of wasting time with protypes is the concept of "toys" which has been proposed by tim cain and a few others. essentially prototyping one mechanic at a time, which feels to me like it would work better than full prototypes for the more impatient. for example, you wanna try a different camera or movement system, and you can build a toy around that
as a fellow gamedev youtuber i made 3 games without prototyping the idea first and they flopped so yeah prototyping will definitely be something ill do a lot more of
It coresponds with tasting whisky. Paying $25 at retail for 50ml sample may feel like a lot, but imagine you just spent $200 on the bottle, and you don't like it.
It is very hard to throw away work when it's simply not working, the sunk cost fallacy is huge.
Wow... I am literally at the phase with Hexagod where I need to cut stuff back now. And it is very hard to kill my darlings.
@@Aarimous don't kill your darlings! nurture and protect them, and save them for a rainy day. removing a cool or interesting feature because of scope creep doesn't have to be the end for that feature, just use it somewhere else
@@AarimousDLC :p
I think it’s important to remember that prototyping doesn’t just apply to picking the game direction, but also to polishing features and mechanics in the game you decide to make.
You totally nailed the part about prototyping that is so hard to grasp: the feeling of wasting time! And its a mindset problem because we're not wasting time at all, we're actually saving time by not pursuing any prototypes that wouldn't work out. I'm in the same boat too, I'm glad you put into words what I needed to hear!
How the heck is it hard to grasp when the only way of figuring out if a game is fun to play, is by actually trying to build a working prototype and see? People who are getting into this sunk cost fallacy problem are in denial of what actually works.
@@PHeMoX Nobody likes trashing hours of creative work, that's the point. And the more you sink into it, the harder it gets.
If it's easy to you, congratulations, you've figured it out.
I can't remember the term, it was something like Parallel processing, but the term isn't important, its the concept. Throughout history their have been great minds that come up with lot's of ideas but only published them later in life. For example, Charles Darwin began writing his theory of evolution years before publishing it. When he had his son, he shifted focus and started writing about the growth and development of children. He shelved what he had learned and what he was thinking, but returned to it later. If you haven't thought about it already, don't just throw out your other ideas once you get feedback; hold on to them. Also, while feedback is great, don't set aside your passion once you get it. It would suck to spend the next year developing a project that your community thinks is a cool idea, but you have no motivation for. Just food for thought that you made me think of.
(6:49) 🤯
That's it!!!
I've had a few other ideas, but what they mentioned helped bridge those ideas!
For a game idea I'm working on as a side project, I initially imagined wanting to create the gameplay mechanics first before the art, but over time that pivoted to wanting to create concept art first and any code later.
I'm now imagining creating a 'tofu prototype’* first while also creating concept art, then I could start to mock up the UI and place a skeleton of that into the prototype, and eventually bring both together into an alpha build, before eventually bringing in the music and sound effects into a beta build.
*Basically a prototype that has plain visual elements as placeholders, like plain white 3D cubes representing player characters (hence the term), built to test core gameplay mechanics.
You are definitely on the right track. Best of luck with your projects, can't wait to see the next prototype :)
Pitching to game streamers is the best idea ever. Not only you get feedback on the game but you also advertise it to a streamer that would very probably play it later on the stream. That's a next level thinking.
I see that your armchair is training for Halloween already. It's doing a very good job - I kept getting more and more spooked as the video went on.
Is it really? I mean, individual streamers are probably as good for an idea evaluation as a bunch of fellow game developers on a Discord server, not to mention it is closer to a pitch rather than a playable prototype that answers more of your questions.
Although, as a form of marketing, it is indeed a brilliant move.
I'm glad you figured this out! I was an active game developer between the Fez/Meatboy and the current era. XNA, Project Greenlight, Desura, PS3/4, 360/One, WiiU days. Prototyping wasn't as easy as it is now with the plethora of great game engines. It took a lot of time but it was the only way we worked and we knew the value in it. We had a "mantra" of finding the fun early. If we didn't find the fun we continued to prototype. Like Toby said, we've cut a lot of cool ideas.
Nowadays I dabble in solo game development. It's only been prototypes and it's been a great way to learn new tech, mechanics, and ideas.
All the luck to you with development and your TH-cam videos. It's neat to see the differences and similarities with the different eras of game development. Maybe someday we will meet.
oh i love that pitch deck to streamers idea. it's different but i ended up doing something similar, i asked, in a discord i thought would have some people interested in my game, but who i had not yet told about it, which of two pitches for the "flavor text" of the game (mostly identical mechanics under the hood) appealed to them more. nothing about the mechanics other than that it's strategy, and like single sentence description, and the one i was leaning towards won with twice as many votes as the other. i don't want to just pick the popular choices for everything but i think that doing a bit will point me in the right direction.
Thank you, Thomas, for being so transparent on everything. You inspired me to start making games.
Useful insights! Probably useful to give yourself a time limit for initial prototyping though, e.g. 30 days or something, then run with whatever the most promising idea is. Otherwise you could just end up endlessly chasing new and shiny projects and never actually start, a problem lots of people struggle with.
But yeah you need to prototype your mechanic ideas and see if they are actually fun. I started with an idea that sounded fun in my head, but turned out to be hot garbage. I'm glad I discovered it early and was able to pivot!
I am grateful for these insights to the industry that you offer through your videos. Hoping one day to be where you are as a developer, but as a current outsider to the realm of full-time game dev, these small portals into that world. Keep doing what you do, and I look forward to seeing what you create!
I've honestly been toying with the idea of creating an open source game project with developers...because working on projects alone is climbing a giant hill by yourself while watching the guy next to you climb the same hill, but life isn't free so that feels almost impossible. Imma go check out your prototypes now!
I'm happy to be a part of this process :) +1 sub
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I've faced similar questions myself as a new indie dev as well.
I just completed a four month course at the Indie Game Academy and the prototype stage is how we picked a game to make. We each made a paper or Unity prototype and then we all played them and picked one of them to make. We ended up making a Netcode for GameObjects multiplayer card game. It was pretty fun. We’re releasing a demo soon and then going to try to pitch the game to a publisher.
Prototyping is crucial i think. Its a great way to see whats good about certain game, what could work, what not could work etc
I do like the bow one if it can be given a good story! excited to see the 3rd one
I'm working on the visual prototype. The next one should be the gameplay prototype. I think prototyping is the most enjoyable part of solo game development, and the hardest part is collecting feedback.
What is the brand and model of the headphones you're using? They look rad! 👌
I was sure you were going to mention Jonathan Blow with that build-up. 😅 Great video.
Look man, you quit your job to be an independent indie game developer. That’s a move I wouldn’t be brave enough to do myself. Creative thinking isn’t guaranteed to happen in the future, but I really respect your work and effort. I wish you the best of luck! ♥
I understand why most Devs go in looking for the game concept that will resonante. As for me, I couldn't care less. I am working on a game because for the last 20 years I needed this one particular game to exist and noone would make it. It's take it or leave it at this point!
(That being said, of course I will be taking feedback form my Demo, but that's different!)
I would just mention the "make many pots" principle of improving your craft. If you haven't heard of it, the idea is that if you make a bunch of things (making many pots, in this example), all while experimenting and exploring and trying different things, that it will ultimately end in a better outcome than working wholeheartedly only focused on a single perfect result (making a single perfect pot). I really believe in this principle and have taken it to heart, there's a decent Medium article about it if you want more context.
Epic stuff my guy! You have very good points, Big fan
"Get feedback early from people". How many people are we talking about? I've no following so it's hard to get feedback if I don't invade peoples discord. I've a prototype but having a hard time to get actual feedback or inputs.
Love this video!
I feel you. Being alone makes doing things like these with abstract value hard to spend time on. If you're spending time on this, you're not spending it on your game. But spending it only on your game means you dont get the exploratory phase of trying stuff out.
Having a youtube channel seems like a great tool because you can get feedback pretty much in real time
It's a double edged sword. It takes focus off the game.
@@AlekSensej Oh yah without a doubt that part I do not envy
Honestly this discussion can be tiring at times. It depends what your motivations are, as a dev. Do you just want to make games, in general, as a living? Sure prototype to your hearts content and find the idea that resonates with where people are and with the trends that are going on. but understand that this is prototyping for the sake of discovery and direction setting. But do you have an idea, an experience, or a vision that you feel strongly that others should take part in? Well, your prototyping is going to be vastly different and you're looking more at a verification process. How are my ideas being communicated? Are the connecting in the way that I want? are people getting the experience i'm intending and are they seeing the world i'm proposing. both are valid directions - but protoyping is just a tool, not a magic wand. Tools work best when you know what and why you're using them.
This is brilliant. Opened my eyes a bit.
I'm getting into gamedev as a fun sidequest, to create the ideas I have, and a low pressure activity while I work on my mental health. Prototyping was always "see if you should throw the idea away or not", which isn't helpful, because imma do it anyways, even if it's bad. All knowing it's bad does is give be fuel to hate myself and make me want to give up on life more.
Using prototyping to make sure the idea is being conveyed correctly is a new concept, and one I rather like. Making sure my goal is successful, that the illusions I need set up are working and effective towards the player's enjoyment.
This should be the pinned comment.
one solution to the feeling of wasting time with protypes is the concept of "toys" which has been proposed by tim cain and a few others. essentially prototyping one mechanic at a time, which feels to me like it would work better than full prototypes for the more impatient.
for example, you wanna try a different camera or movement system, and you can build a toy around that
vibes oriented design. Could be the way to go
Prototyping is so important and is it's own skill you have to develop.
I really like your very adult way of thinking about this stuff 🎉
as a fellow gamedev youtuber i made 3 games without prototyping the idea first and they flopped so yeah prototyping will definitely be something ill do a lot more of
Good summary!
brief and profound. nice
Such an important lesson! Would love to talk shop with you about both game dev and TH-cam someday 🍻
You should link a google form to fill out as a survey!
Good job building a youtube channel for people to prototype your games!
Make sure you have a good seed that can sprout before you worry about planting and harvesting it.
Hey ma look! I’m famous!!
To me both prototypes looks not prommising at all. Hope third one will be the one! Wish you the best!
Remember. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Remember. Rough is approximate, approximate is _quick, quick_ is wide, and prototype's key principle is Breath First Search.
It coresponds with tasting whisky.
Paying $25 at retail for 50ml sample may feel like a lot, but imagine you just spent $200 on the bottle, and you don't like it.
Wait, Thronefall made millions of dollars??? Like, not just *a* million, but *millions*? Plural??
I wouldn't call this a "prototype' but more like an "asset flip".
Ye prototyping can feel like a waste of time.
But if the prototypes don't work out you might have saved a lot of time and pain.
Is this some sort of a rage bait? People out there really think that prototyping is a waste of time?
I strongly suggest you to read The Lean Startup book, by Eric Ries.
Where are the bridges and docks videos?
first