Roblog

I will be posting weekly game prototypes soon.  The purpose of these prototypes is twofold: 1) to quickly try out gameplay ideas in an effort to find something cool that people will enjoy playing and 2) to practice and improve my game development skills.

The idea comes from my time at the Game Developer’s Conference last spring.  I attended the Indie Developer Track and in many of the sessions the successful developers talked about how much rapid prototyping they did.  The guys who put together World of Goo found the idea within a prototype called Tower of Goo that they put together in a graduate course.  The goal of the course was to put together a new prototype each week of the class.  Crayon Physics Deluxe came from a prototype called Crayon Physics that turned out to be an extremely popular prototype on its developer’s page.  The developer decided on his own to put together monthly prototypes (inspired, I believe, by the aforementioned graduate class idea).  There were several other examples of developers who did regular rapid prototyping “discovering” successful game ideas, making me realize that one of the advantages that independent developers have is their flexibility and freedom to blow through dozens or hundreds of ideas quickly.

With all that said, I’ve started my own weekly prototyping schedule.  I will be posting my results each week for all to try out and comment on.  Some will be fun, some not, and hopefully one gem of a concept will surface that really shines for people.

~R

Currently Playing: The Beatles Rock Band, Guitar Hero 5