Avoid This Mistake With Your Game Prototypes!

It will waste your time

Game developers are teachers.

Good games teach players mechanics in a way that is engaging. This is done through tutorials, and the best games seem to have invisible tutorials. Players learn as they play, without even realizing it. Keep in mind, though, designing a tutorial like this is hard and takes a lot of time.

When making a prototype, everyone talks about using placeholder art. Nobody talks about placeholder tutorials, though.

While working on my own game, Demonlocke, I’ve iterated on the battle mechanics hundreds of times. With each iteration, I spent hours upon hours implementing features to help teach testers the new mechanics. And with each new major design change I was forced to rip out those features.

I finally asked my self why?

Why do I spend precious time creating in-game tutorials to teach players mechanics that I might not even keep?

I decided to try something a little different. I recorded a short video tutorial of myself explaining the different mechanics in my battle prototype and sent it out with my newest build.

My testers were able to watch the video, get a quick understanding of the prototype’s main mechanics, and give me feedback on those mechanics directly. No wasted time on in-game tutorials.

A video tutorial was the first thing I thought of. However, you may consider a simple written tutorial. The point is, focus on an easy way to teach the mechanics without a lot of effort on your end. Once you have your mechanics mostly set in stone, you can move forward and implement a good in-game tutorial.

Thanks for reading,
Ben

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