Now about prototyping. What is a prototype? Well, a prototype is a playable version of a game. We've already mentioned a few examples of this in a previous courses. The games you've created in Fran's introductory class, using only a pencil and paper, are prototypes. They are something you can sketch out quickly and give to users to play test. A gameplay flowchart, which Darish discusses in this class, or even a map, which I touched on in World Design, also a kind of playable prototype. They give a play tester, and yourself, an idea of the game's narrative flow, where a player will move and what obstacles they might encounter. A prototype is created and manipulated internally, by the studio or by yourself. It'll be seen and played by a few people only. From time to time, a prototype may be used to pitch a project to publishers. In this case, the prototype has to be polished enough to appear attractive. Game companies will iterate multiple prototypes, sometimes pushing them out to the public before they are complete. Many indie developers and studios are to early builds now, called alphas, to a play testing community. Alphas usually have a disclaimer attached to them, stating that players might encounter bugs, glitches, sometimes raw content in gameplay. Opening your alpha to general gaming public has the advantage of getting early feedback, but it can also break or disrupt the peace of the production. In this course and in the projects you are completing here, releasing an alpha isn't needed. But building a prototype and testing it with your peers is a quick way to troubleshoot issues with the game design. If it doesn't work, you'll know right away and you will tackle any problems as early possible. A prototype also helps you concretize a vision, do your ideas actually work? Is your game's narrative and its assets what you envision them to be? A prototype also gives you an opportunity for experimentation. You want to do this now rather than later. In this stage, you can still try to create crazy and original things, not just small changes and tweaks but bigger things. Now, a prototype is useful even if you are in a team of one, or working with hundreds of people in a larger studio. In a way when, building a prototype, version is the key word here. A tremendous amount of versions and or parts or chunks for the final game has to be created. So keep your versions tidy. Label each iteration with a successive number or letter and keep track of the feedback you receive. We'll talk a little bit more about how to get the most out of you feedback during play testing later on in this course.
