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Joseph Ellis
United States
Columbus
Ohio
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Whenever I've seen tips on game design, it always includes, "Make a prototype quickly!" The reason given is that a lot of your ideas aren't going to work, and you're better off finding that out before you try to nail down every detail in the rules and mechanics and points.
Oh how true!
I had my idea: a game about civilizations where all the kingdoms are generic and the same, but various gods fight over control of the people and send them to war. But that's pretty vague.
Nonetheless, I charged forward on a prototype. I made a grid of smallish hexes, and I made them out to be a series of islands among water. Each island was just one hex, with 2-4 hexes between each island.
In my mind, each island represented a group of people. If you could get an idol built on an island, you had control of the bits on that island and the surrounding tiles.
Trying to keep the game simple, I made it all military. You could build shipyards, basic ships, a stronger but slower ship, and alternatively, you could built big trebuchet-type things on the islands instead of shipyards. I had no goal in mind but I came up with some basic production, movement and combat rules (with no luck involved), and my friend
Brandon M
United States
Columbus
Ohio
was nice enough to try it out with me.
It was playable, and even fun for a few minutes. But after about 90 minutes, we had made no progress, having gone around in circles on the same group of islands, with no one gaining the upper hand.
Ultimately, it was boring, and the whole "spatial control" thing ended up taking a backseat to the other rules. Boo.
The experience soured me on the whole game and I didn't work on the game for a couple months after that. Here are a few things I learned:
 Indeed, our initial ideas for games suck, and we need prototypes to figure that out. If you're not willing to create a game that sucks, don't get into game design, because it takes a few crappy designs to find your way to a good game.
 Some uncertainty is necessary when combat is involved. Whether its dice or hidden cards that come into play, if you can just roll over someone knowing the exact result, the game is transparent and boring. Games like Antike and Imperial don't have luck, but are they really combat games, at all?
 For this game, I need various paths for the players to go down. In my initial design, no matter what you did, the best strategies and tactics never changed. I needed god powers or cards or something to help define a variety of strategy paths for the players to go down.
Point is the most important. Whenever I think about songwriting, game design, or even just writing, I like to imagine that the perfect creation is just waiting dormant to be revealed in my mind instantly.
Nope, it's not that way. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of working through crappy prototypes to get a really good song, poem, or even game. (I'm not equating game design with regular art, by the way, although they can be artistic.) Being a game designer means not just being an inspired, creative person, but being willing to shovel through some crap.
Agree? Disagree? I'd love to hear some opinions on that. Have you ever had a strategy game just come to you, and it worked perfectly, just like you imagined? Or are you still in the middle of thinking you suck at designing games, while you refine and re-imagine and reorganize?
My key is, I really, really REALLY believe in my basic premise and theme. That's what keeps me working on the game.
Tomorrow, I'll tell you about failed prototype part two.
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