Game Prototyping Toolkit: A Handy Checklist

The best way I’ve found to design a good game is to design as many bad games as you can, as quickly as you can.

The key to this process is rapid physical prototyping, in which you grab some prototype bits, write up the rules, and actually make the game.

Even if the game you’re making is destined for the video screen, I encourage you to make a physical version all the same. While testing, when you realize you forgot (or badly screwed up) some core rule of the game, you just jot that rule down and keep going. But if you have to stop and reprogram it… Well, then the prototyping just got a lot less rapid. (And if you’re not doing your own programming, you’ve not only lost time, but you’ve annoyed your coder. Don’t annoy your coders, kids. Nothing good can come of it.)

“Fine!” you say. “You’ve convinced me I need a physical prototype. Are you going to give me a list of things I should have on hand to make such a thing?”

“Yes!” I say. “And here it is:”

• Basic Office Supplies: You know, the usual scissors, glue, pencils, markers, fish heads, tape, can opener, and bottle of aspirin you’ll find for a nickel apiece at Target when September rolls around. If you’re doing a ton of cutting, you might want to consider one of those “slip and chop off a finger” paper-cutters. They’ll save you a ton of time, until you spend the night in the emergency room.
• Dice: Six-siders, of course. But you should have at least one set of polyhedral (i.e., “Dungeons and Dragons”) dice with more or fewer sides. An ominous black twenty-sider might not be necessary for your design, but it makes a great mascot.
• Cards: Regular playing cards are cheap and have numbers on them you might find useful. But old cards from trading card games work great too, and (if you’re like me) you probably already have boxes of the things gathering dust in the basement, sullenly refusing to increase in value.
• Card Sleeves: Oh, you could paste your new card fronts onto dozens or hundreds of old TCG cards… or you could just slip them into card sleeves, saving yourself hours of work and a few sticky fingers. Make sure you get multiple colors, so you can differentiate between decks. (“The green cards are the Suffering Deck, the blue ones are the Joy deck.”)
• Cereal Boxes: Yes, cereal boxes. These make great cardboard tokens. Thicker than index cards, yet thin enough to cut with scissors, these boxes are my go-to standard whenever I need chits.
• Glass Beads: You know those little tubes of glass tokens you see in the hobby game store? The ones next to the Magic and Yugioh cards? Don’t buy those. Instead, head to the dollar store where you can buy glass beads by the pound. Get ’em in as many colors as you can find. (The craft store probably has them if the dollar store doesn’t, but check the house of cheap first.)
• More Dice: While you’re at the dollar store, check the toy aisle. If you’re lucky, they’ll have cheap six-sided dice, five or six of them in each pack, often in different colors. Grab a handful. You’ll thank me later.
• Poker Chips: Hey, what’s this next to the dice in the dollar store? Why, it’s a box of a hundred plastic poker chips. You’ll want some of those too. They’re great for random tokens, and you can mark ’em up with Sharpies to create custom pieces.
• Other Pawns and Tokens: Is there a bag of plastic spiders in the toy aisle? How about a bucket of army men? Those are awesome game tokens! So are little wooden cylinders and cubes you can find at the craft store.
• Boards: Not all games need boards, which is nice, since prototyping boards can be a pain. I find the easiest way to mock up a board is to pick up a cruddy old board game from the thrift store and paper over the its graphics with my own. The resulting board lies flat (unlike some hand-crafted monstrosity made from cardboard) and I get a sick thrill from using a “My Happy Pony Sunshine Day” board to prototype “Deathblood Doom Rangers.”
• Boards Part Two: Or maybe you want a roll of paper with a grid printed on it? Try Gaming Paper — it’s cheap, disposable, and made with 64% AWESOME. Just seeing it makes me want to design some sort of tactical grid-based game. Hmmm…

Got all that? Good! Now go make some games!