How to Make a Paper Prototype

When designing a new game, it is important to make a simple prototype of it to get an idea of what is going to be in the game. The easiest way of doing this is by making a prototype of it onto a piece of paper. The benefits of creating a paper prototype for a game are initial development speed, iteration speed, low technical barrier, collaborative prototyping, and focused prototyping and testing (Gibson 126). Paper prototyping constructs an idea faster than programming it from scratch in a program. This allows for the concept of the game to change and become focused on specific ideas before programming starts.

The paper prototype to my game

In this prototype I draw each section of the game and what they are used for. I list ideas to improve the game next to each drawing to help focus on specific aspects of what the game will do. Also, this helps with deciding what resources are needed for the game to function and what can be added later. While paper prototyping has its benefits, there are some things that need to be avoided, "Several things in the prototype could have been handled better by a computer. These include visibility calculations, tracking health... For the paper prototype, you want to focus on the simple systems in your game" (Gibson 139). I tried avoiding these disadvantages by limiting my time spent editing the paper prototype and focus primarily on the functions that the game has to have to be playable.

Have you ever thought of playing a video game on pieces of paper?

Gibson, Jeremy. Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From
     Concept to Playable Game-with Unity® and C#. Upper Saddle River:
     Addison-Wesley, 2015. Print.