- Is this fun?
- This might be the most important question for all games. If it’s not fun, why? It’s probably to time to pivot! A prototype that can capture this will differ depending on the game, but the focus should be on capturing the gameplay. For our Mao spin-off, we just need to present the rules. I think we will find some difficulties in organizing the rules at first, but we will quickly know which parts are fun and which are not.
- Does the play meet our objective as creators?
- If our mission as a team is to generate fun, we should be conscious of how our game plays out and how our players feel. We can get this from a box prototype to get audience reactions and also expectations, and a gameplay/ruleset like described above could also work. For our Mao spin off, I expect that it will be a mixed success, but ultimately I believe our game and objective will match.
- What is the biggest roadblock for people to play the game?
- This will help us design our game and polish it in the later steps. Sometimes some roadblocks are inevitable, but limiting confusion and maximizing fun will be ideal. I think it will be hard with an incomplete prototype, so this might end up being a question we consider later in our design process.
- Is the game balanced?
- To make sure players don’t feel discouraged, we want to not make the game too difficult for one so they leave feeling it is unfair. We can consider this in any design that considers gameplay. Our team will consider later in our design process.
