Tory Niemann
United States
Phoenix
Arizona
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You've got a great idea for a new game! It ferments for a few days in your mind and boy does it sound great.
You write down some rules and think about how the mechanics of the game will work. Everything feels right! You run the game idea by some other gamers, and they are intrigued by your concepts. Soon you start to feel like you got a pretty good game on your hands, so you throw together a prototype to see how it plays and...
...once you've made the prototype, you see glaring flaws that make it unplayable, unoriginal, and/or just plain no fun at all. You think about ways to fix it, but the flaws are too deeply rooted.
Somehow, until the moment you create the prototype, you are completely oblivious to how the game will actually be. But once it's physically in your hands, you see that it completely doesn't work. You are flabbergasted that you could have missed its flaws until you made the prototype, or, in severe cases, forced your friends play it.
This happens to me quite frequently. It's frustrating and leaves me wishing that I had some internal filter that can catch these bad ideas before they get too far. Sure, learning from your mistakes is great and all, but I'd rather learn from them before I spent all that time, cardstock and printer ink.
Does anyone else have this problem, or am I missing some normal brain function?
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A. B. West
United States
Beech Grove
Indiana
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For what it's worth, my latest game went through three complete rewrites before getting to its current state. Other ideas come out wrong in unexpected ways - and I set them aside for later. If the idea really stays with me, I figure I'll come back to it after some time - and maybe with fresh ways to fix it.
So no, you're not alone at all.
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David Gregg
United States
Asheboro
North Carolina
NightfallGame.com/FAQ
BoardGameGeek.com/Blog/193
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adamw wrote: For what it's worth, my latest game went through three complete rewrites before getting to its current state. Other ideas come out wrong in unexpected ways - and I set them aside for later. If the idea really stays with me, I figure I'll come back to it after some time - and maybe with fresh ways to fix it.
So no, you're not alone at all.
Same here, first version of Nightfall took over 3 hours to play and was terribly boring... Was a couple rewrites later before it even gained the "chain" mechanic that the game is named after now.
Long story short: if it sounds cool, stick with it and don't be afraid to add/remove parts of the game, even if it means a complete rewrite.
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Chris Cieslik
United States
Boston
Massachusetts
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What you need to do is make some new imaginary friends, inside your head. Preferably, ones that like games. This way, you can play it in your mind before it ever gets to paper!
I used to do this myself, but one of the jerks spilled soda all over my prototype.
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Eurojuegos Buenos Aires
Argentina
Buenos Aires
Capital Federal
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.
Solo playtesting
The easiest way to avoid loosing playtester friends
As to check if things look broken but you haven't realized, try posting them at board games designers forum www.bgdf.com
You'll get a fair feedback most times.
Also, try to figure out what part of the design is your usual flaw: do you make games unbalanced? are they just dry? does the basic mechanic fail or are the sidetracks failing? does it start fine but evolves into the wrong direction? is the theme unfitting? This can make you pay more attention on your weak spots or focus in a certaing mechanic you are more confortable with.
Better luck next time. Keep thinking!
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Nick Hayes
United States
Los Angeles
California
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tk421 wrote: ...once you've made the prototype, you see glaring flaws that make it unplayable, unoriginal, and/or just plain no fun at all.
Yes, of course that happens. It happens to me with almost all of my designs. But guess what? That's why they call 'em prototypes. The first few prototypes should be very cheap, pencil-and-paper stuff so the only thing you've invested in them is time.
Also, like A.B. West said, I have games that have gone through many entire rewrites. The concept/story for the game is great! Just gotta figure out how to turn it into a game that works. It will happen eventually.
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kevin long
United States
Vancouver
Washington
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For me this happened on every design but one.
 i set them aside and may come back to them a year or 2 later and see if fresh eyes can revive it.
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Donald Acker
China
Suzhou
Jiangsu
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You're lucky you catch it at the prototype -- I only notice it in the first playtest. And yes, it is common and demoralizing.
One good hint (for all art, not just game design) is to not make a fancy prototype. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is real until the game survives its first playtest. Pencil on paper is generally best before then.
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Steven Metzger
United States
Pullman
Washington
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Yes it happens a lot. I tend to overdesign and few of my ideas really turn out to be good ones.
Here's a piece of advice: Focus on the FUN part of the game.
Or, if you are not that type of gamer: Focus on the MOST INTERESTING part of the game.
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Scott Westgard
United States
Illinois
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It always sounds great in my head. By the time a mechanic is in place, I start having fears that it wont have enough depth to it, or will not have meaningful strategic choices. One of my worst fears is there will be an obvious winning strategy that will become apparent within 3-4 tries of the game, and it will loose replayability. My other fear is there is too much luck.
I like what Steve said above me. Focus on what made you excited about the theme in the first place. What made you think it would be FUN, or INTERESTING to begin with? What do YOU like about the game...chances are other people will like that too. And...K.I.S.S.... Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I often overthink a games mechanic, and add too many fiddly rules.
Its understandable to have some complexities in rules, but I would rather see the complexities arise from play situations, components, and interactions, than from complex turn sequences, and computations of lots of numbers.
Good Luck!
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Markus Hagenauer
Germany
Surheim
Germany
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Pastor_Mora wrote: .
Solo playtesting
The easiest way to avoid loosing playtester friends
I totaly agree. Solo playtesting is the best way to find out if the game workes ot not. It is verry hard to find the problems, just playing the game in your head. But for solo playtesting, you often to not need to make a prototype, or only in parts. I often use components of other games, becouase for me playing alone, it is ok to know, the pawns are dwarves and the bishops are dragons for example.
So you can find out if you core mechanic works, without doing a lot of tinkering.
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Benny Sperling
United States
Arlington
Texas
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This happens to me with a degree of frequency. I tweak the pencil and paper ones till they feel right and my playtesters are happy with them. Then I go to the computer phase. It's just a matter of tweaking them.
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Carc >> BSG
United States
Topeka
Kansas
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I've made a dozen designs in prototype form, and most of them crashed during solo playtesting. My biggest hurdle is knowing whether something is fun or not.
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Ramon Raya
United States
California
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I happens a lot. I made a potion game. It ran slow and it lacked any real strategy (which made it a flop in my gaming group of strategy players). I think I may actually bring it back. As I type this, I'm thinking of things to add to it to make it more enjoyable.
In short, nobody's perfect. I admit, I was embarrassed when another one of my games were broken. You can't possibly see what you're missing from your game or rules or problems you incur. That's why they're prototypes. Keep at it.
The automobile engine wasn't built in a day. Neither were boardgame engines.
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Mark Manning
United Kingdom
Greenhithe
Kent
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In my mind; not idea is a bad idea even if the final design was a "failure", though I use that term loosely.
When a game I'm designing hits a dead-end creatively or stumbles into rough design country as your example suggests; I collect all the notes, put them in a box and keep them - because they teach me something and who knows, you may design a game some months down the line which needs something to complete it and you'll go "Oh! What about mechanic X from that misfire I created a while ago."
But a far better way to get past the flaws stage - release B&W tester packs to other game designers before you create an expensive prototype; the amount of times a fresh pair of eyes has saved my design is immeasurable.
Keep at it Tory
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Jim Harmon
United States
Hilliard
Ohio
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Yes, this has happened to me a couple of times as well and it is quite disappointing. I never really know how well a design/mechanic is going to work until that first play test, I've had some I thought in my mind would work really well but did not.
My initial reaction is to chuck the design/idea or put it away to maybe come back to later. Though what I often find happening is I can't stop thinking about the design and trying to figure out what went wrong and why it didn't play like I thought it would. I then find myself making changes and getting excited about it again and want to get another play test in as soon as I can.
Some of my best design have come out of this process so don't give up.
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I think about half my prototypes are broken as soon as they are made. The rest are playable and usually have gotten good feedback. The ones that fail I usually found out during solo playtesting (I echo the advise above -- solo playtesting is huge). I think only once did I bring a game out to my group before the fatal flaw was seen (and was seen by them, in the first 30 seconds of play -- yeah, it was bad). But that one time was humiliating enough to keep me from bringing out any more prototypes until around 3 years later. And a couple of those guys haven't played any of my games since. I guess they are still traumatized.
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Derek H
South Africa
Durban
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Er, no. It's just you.
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Jack Bennett
United States
Rougemont
North Carolina
Play. Always.
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I don't know that it's possible to NOT have this happen. Every single game idea I've had is very different at the end than it was at the beginning.
So here's some thoughts:
1. You said:
Quote: It's frustrating and leaves me wishing that I had some internal filter that can catch these bad ideas before they get too far.
You DO! You caught them! In my opinion "too far" is published. After reading through your post I took a look through my collection and found quite a few games I wish you'd played during their playtesting and found why they didn't work. Too many games get printed unplaytested and broken. Finding the mistakes after you've spent some time and money on a prototype is great! At least you found them.
2. Maybe it was in "On Writing" where I read this, but Stephen King wrote about his writing process. He would start a story, get as much down as he could, and then put it away. Many many months later, when he was ready, he'd go back to it, look at it, and play with it again. I have found that this is an amazing approach both for my writing, but also for my designs.
I could come up with a new game idea a day that doesn't work ("He made a helicopter that did. not. work. And SO DID I!"). I have a protected wiki page that all the people I trust to help me design have access to and I just write everything down that comes to mind. Were I to make a prototype then and there I would play it, and it would crash and depress me to the point where I wouldn't touch the game. But, if I write all the ideas down, even the bad ones, and then just let it stew for a while it works better. I can go back, sometimes even just a week later, and read what I wrote and I usually have a better sense of what to do and what not to do.
Quote: Does anyone else have this problem, or am I missing some normal brain function?
Sounds like you have exactly the brain functions you need to playtest games. I wish more designers had it.
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Paulo Caparica Junior minhocossauro
Brazil
São Paulo
São Paulo
Visit www.minhocosaauro.com Thanks!!
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Pastor_Mora wrote: .
Solo playtesting
The easiest way to avoid loosing playtester friends
This must be the first test. The same way it is done with software devlopment, you only get others to test it when you are sure it is ok (it is almost never ok)
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Don Eskridge
United States
Edmond
Oklahoma
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You're definitely not alone and remember you get better every time.
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Vital Lacerda
Portugal
Oeiras
Portugal
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Back in 2007 when I playtested for the first time a game that I believe that could be a good one. That playtest, took me and my playtesting group, more than one hour, just to balance the setup of the game. We don't even play the game that evening, just discuss it's setup.
Their flaws were huge. But I didn't give up, and 3 years later, (hopefully late this year) it will turn to be my first published game.
So, just don't give up if you think the game is worth it.
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Kris Wolff
United States
poulsbo
Washington
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Happens to me all the time. I have over 25 such "great game ideas" that are absolutely fun and interesting for me and my friends to play -- in my imagination. Only one is to the point where we play it regularly and companies are starting to look at prototypes.
I'd say the best advice is to answer the question: why was it not interesting? And the hardest part of the question is being open to the possibility that the thing that is breaking your game may be the aspect that you thought was the coolest, or that you were the proudest of. Just remember, you'll be proudest of your game and think it's coolest once it finally gets published. And besides, that "cool" thing you had to remove, hopefully you can put it into another of your games...
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Scott Westgard
United States
Illinois
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When I was young I was attracted to games because they had cool bits. Dogfight, Tank Battle...later on Axis&Allies, miniature-based games...etc., even now I like Wings of War partially because the miniatures are so beautiful.
So as an artist I have this problem: I like to design the bits first. Sometimes I have no idea what the game mechanic will be, but it damn well will look cool. I know this is completely ass-backwards but it is a hard habit to break. I wish I had a great designer to work with, not just my group of gaming friends. Otherwise I might end up making a game called "Great Bits, No Rules."
Somebody Help Me.......
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Jack Darwid
Indonesia
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Of course, yes !
I call it the Death Test  .
An idea is just an idea, we need to try it ! (usually my first test is solo, eventhough it's a multiplayer game). And sometimes after hours days weeks making the prototype, in just one (ONE !) test, I throw the game away. 
So, it's normal
Cheers!
JackD
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