From the course: 2D Game Design and Development Essential Training

Prototype a game

From the course: 2D Game Design and Development Essential Training

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Prototype a game

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- [Instructor] Let's talk a little bit about prototyping a game. As you continue to build your game, you may want to test out new ideas and see if they work. This is where building a prototype can be helpful. Most people jump right into making a game by focusing on the art and the sound design. While this is important, you should focus more on the game mechanics and figure out what is fun before doing anything else. If you don't have an art or sound background, it may help just to use placeholder artwork. You can still focus on the actual mechanics without having final art or sound. But sometimes using simplistic artwork actually lends to the final game. Let's take a look at two successful minimalistic games. You can easily make games with very little art. There are many minimalistic games that focus on gameplay first, such as Thomas Was Alone and Super Hexagon. Thomas Was Alone is a very unique platformer. It borrows a lot from games in the genre and also uses some very interesting art styles in order to make it feel fresh. The next game is Super Hexagon. Super Hexagon is primarily a music-based game that uses the beat to change the level design, making it harder and harder the longer you play. Super Hexagon also uses a similar art style to Thomas Was Alone. Building a game for the first time will stretch all of your skills, like programming, creativity, design, and more. It's easy to get bogged down in the details and forget the most valuable part of making a game, which is building something that's fun to play. Don't worry so much about the sound and the art. Simply focus on the core mechanic and the game loop to make sure that you're building something fun. You can always replace the artwork and sound once you have the prototype working.

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