Tips for Successful Mobile Game Prototyping

A game prototype is the initial stage in the level of development where ideas are turned into something executable and test them with users. It’s not pretty, but it works. This is when the major creative decisions for your game will determine if players enjoy it or not. And this is where you’ll prove if all your hard work was worth the effort.

Prototyping for mobile games is different from console development, where more time is allotted to making a great first impression. But with mobile, players are always only one download away from playing your competitor’s game instead of yours.

A single play can be enough to make or break it. Prototypes should be quick and dirty but playable. It should minimize all the mechanics to get down to what matters most: is it fun?

The main value of prototyping is to address the riskiest aspects of your game design before you sink in a ton of time making something that may not be fun in reality. This doesn’t mean that if your prototype is not fun that you should scrap the whole idea. It just means that you need to revisit your assumptions and either go back to the drawing board or make some changes before it’s too late.

Here are six tips for making game prototypes:

1. Use Existing Frameworks

Do not try to make everything from scratch. Use what’s already been done and save yourself time! Many tools now offer a great environment for prototyping. They have everything you need to create games without reinventing the wheel or even learning comprehensive programming codes.

2. Keep Your Team Small

Limit the scope by focusing on one mechanic at a time. The smaller you keep it, the easier it will be to complete prototyping in a short period.

When working on your mobile prototype, you shouldn’t worry about the rest of the game features. Just get the core mechanic down and get it to work. If you think later on that it needs something else or is missing some elements, then add them later on during production.

You can do prototyping solo, but if you’re about to make it for many games successively, you need help. You can then consider outsourcing game development at this point.

3. Get Out of Your Office

Your game will be played by real people, not robots. You need to see how they interact with it. This step may be the most important since you are looking for bugs and ways to make the game more fun.

Prototype at events or meetups where you can record players’ reactions. A great source of inspiration and user problems is your friends and family. They will give it a try and be completely honest. Implement their feedback directly into the prototype, then test again to see if you achieved what you wanted.

Get feedback from other people even if they aren’t designers or have played video games before. You want to know what they don’t get and why they stop playing. You can then adjust accordingly by simplifying certain aspects of your prototype so that anyone can play it without a manual.

4. Use Placeholder Art

You are not creating the next “Cuphead” here, so you do not need fancy art. You aim to make something playable as fast as possible. Players will not care about how it looks. They will play your game because of what it does or how it plays. Use this rule for the first iteration only and then focus on polishing the rest later.

5. Keep a Record of It

During prototype development, your most valuable asset is your player base, so you need to know what works and what doesn’t. Record their behavior with a tool like Firebase analytics platform for mobile games.

This way, you can determine if players are dropping off in the first minute or after 10 minutes. You can then analyze this data and make changes accordingly.

6. Use Beta Testing

Once your prototype is working and playable, it’s time to send it out into the world and test it with real users. You can do that by lending a device to your friends and family.

But you’ll get way more results if you use beta testing services like Testflight. It will give you invaluable information that will help you decide what is worth all that development time and resources and what needs to be changed.

It’s not easy to get it right the first time, but using these tips and rules will save you a lot of time and easily iterate on your prototype until you achieve what you were looking for.

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