Prototyping
From IndieGuide
Prototypes is an essential approach to game design and creation. You can distinguish two types of prototyping, one in regards to a game mechanics, another in regards to technology.
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Prototyping Game Mechanics
Regardless of your genius mindset and your endless ability to phantasies over the greatest game features, you will eventually have to face reality of an implementation, on screen, with a mouse and a keyboard. Be prepared your original concept will vary from the final product, and if the outcome is not satisfactory, you will have to refine it. The good news it, during this process you will most likely encounter new ideas that you could not have come up with in your mind alone.
Prototyping Technologies
If you use new technology or you just want to do something you haven't done before, it's advisable you prototype it before going for the real thing. Basically this is the software developement method 'rapid prototyping' which allows you to assess sooner if a certain approach or idea will be worth carrying though to completion as once you have a small implementation working any un-expected problems will become easier to spot and the total effort associated with using that method in the project will become easier to estimate.
Prototyping in Different Languages
Prototypes are made for rapidly testing out what the game play feels like and if it is fun. They're made for that exact purpose and nothing more. Some people develop very bad habits and reuse their prototype for the real game. This is generally not advisable for a quite a few reasons, main reason being that the prototype is hastily developed and untested. Some people develop the prototype and the real game in two different languages to force themselves not to use the prototype's code. Also it obviously is a good exercise. A common combo is prototyping in Python because it is fast to program but a little slow at run time and C++/C# for the real game because it's fast at run time but takes a lot longer to program.
See also
- Presentation by Jonathan Blow on Indie prototyping at the Indie Games Summit (at the GDC) in March 2007.
- How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days: Tips and Tricks from 4 Grad Students Who Made Over 50 Games in 1 Semester - Article at Gamasutra.
