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[Kren]

I have been lately trying to make games, to actual design them, but I always get to the point before starting to sprite, that I don't know if the game is an actual good game idea or just something that is boring, so that makes me question the idea more and more, and think if I am going in the right direction on the game making of this idea or if I should modify any given element before I actually start the coding/spriting phase,

So I am wondering how you tigers decide if your idea is worth the time and effort to continue and sprite/code it ;P?

[Chris Z]

I usually prototype the gameplay first.  That means sphere and boxes (or sprites of them in the 2D case) for art with the core mechanic in place from the very beginning.  If that core mechanic is not fun or not what you imagined it to be then dont continue or re-evaluate the gameplay.  

If you're going for a more visual or atmospheric game or if the gameplay is more derivative than original then create some mockups of what the level and characters would look like (usually a stillframe, no animations).  You can always get feedback of your mockups from this community or others if you cant convince yourself one way or another.

[Rob Lach]

exactly what chris said.

Make it without polish and placeholder art. Then if your ugly and obtuse version is good, make it great.

[Montoli]

yeah, I was basically going to say the same thing, but two(!) people have already beaten me to it.  I'll definitely chime in and say "yeah what they said" though!

I am a firm believer in the importance of prototyping.  My thinking:  If you can make the game fun with just placeholder boxes, then it will still be fun once those boxes have been replaced with real art.  On the other hand, if the game sucks with placeholder boxes, then good art probably won't save it.

Art is easier to swap in later than gameplay.   So while you're figuring the gameplay out, don't be afraid to spend some time playing with something that looks like this:

[agersant]

Perhaps I am a terrible Game Designer but I do not recognize myself in these answers. I don't recall ever enjoying playing a prototype/programmer art game.
I think that a huge part of the entertainment stems from the art, sound and overall polish of the game. If I were to play Diablo or Torchlight without the sparklings effects and thunderblazes when I hit ennemies, if the slashes and loot were not rythmically playing their *slash* *ding* *slash* *slash* *ding* rythm, I would probably be bored in no time.
I think that eye/ear-candy as a reward for hitting the right key at the right time is a very important part of the experience.

That's why I tend to start all my projects with a still mockup and a music track before moving on to programming. Also, the mockup and track make a good reference to keep the project's vision all the way through.

[Theotherguy]

Perhaps I am a terrible Game Designer but I do not recognize myself in these answers. I don't recall ever enjoying playing a prototype/programmer art game.
I think that a huge part of the entertainment stems from the art, sound and overall polish of the game. If I were to play Diablo or Torchlight without the sparklings effects and thunderblazes when I hit ennemies, if the slashes and loot were not rythmically playing their *slash* *ding* *slash* *slash* *ding* rythm, I would probably be bored in no time.
I think that eye/ear-candy as a reward for hitting the right key at the right time is a very important part of the experience.

That's why I tend to start all my projects with a still mockup and a music track before moving on to programming. Also, the mockup and track make a good reference to keep the project's vision all the way through.

They're both important. You should make a still mockup AND a prototype before starting your game.

[Laremere]

There is a great article by the guys who run the experimental gameplay project: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_01.shtml

I recommend giving it a read.  It includes some pretty good tips on how to approach making sure games are fun.  My favorite is to play the game in your head.  Play around with the idea and how it works.  I know from personal experience I've had a few ideas that when I thought about them further I realized wouldn't be any fun.  The best thing about playing games in your head is that you can do it without even touching a line of code, or a computer for that matter.

[s0]

They're both important. You should make a still mockup AND a prototype before starting your game.

I've never made a mockup or a prototype. How bad is that?

Or actually, in a way, I do make "prototypes", but they usually evolve into the real game, I don't make a clear distinction.

[Kren]

The Main reason why I can't prototype is that Iam just a spriter not a coder  so I can only make mockups and expect to get a coder, b ut that again doesn't mean that the game is well defined or something fun to play D;, but I must say this really helped mostly the link posted by Laremere ! Thanks alot!

Also, I have always seen mockups as a way to help other spriters to follow the style in a game or just to show how the style of the game is supposed to look, it is really hard to make mockups that do the same function than a prototypes.

[Montoli]

I've never made a mockup or a prototype. How bad is that?

Or actually, in a way, I do make "prototypes", but they usually evolve into the real game, I don't make a clear distinction.

I think that's more the point - the idea isn't "thou must make a build and call it a prototype, and throw it away later."  The idea is more "it's helpful to verify that yes, it is as fun as you think, BEFORE you invest a lot of time in things like art or hard-to-change code blocks."

And of course, there is no "one true way" to make games, so if you have a system that works for you, more power to ya!  I'll admit though, that I've seen a fair number of projects run into trouble because they built all the art and audio and put it all together at the end... only to discover that it wasn't actually all that fun, once they finally got to play it.  Enough at least, that when people ask "how do you make sure the idea is fun, once you have it in your head?" that I shout "prototype early, prototype often!".

[Tumetsu]

Problem for me with prototypes is that I don't think them ever being very fun. Or let's say that they may be nice first but wear off soon. This means that I have a new problem: how long game entertains? Is my boredom a serious negative mark or is it just I have tested, tested, and tested my game so much? This is problem with my longer games. After a while I start to doubt my concept, no matter what it is. Any solutions for this?

Other than that I recommend prototyping and mockups, it probably depends on you what you find best.

[Oddball]

I'm a big fan of prototyping. I code stuff really fast anyway so knocking up a quick prototype is no problem. I have literally hundreds of failed and discarded prototypes archived. I find that even the failed ones are useful in one way or another. I will also prototype ideas when I have no intention of making the full game. It helps keep my coding and design skills sharp whilst working on longer projects. Another thing I'll do is if I'm having designers block I'll fire up a few of my archived prototypes to help stimulate my creativity.

[torahhorse]

It might be more useful to think of the ideas and the game making as one continuous loop where if something sucks, you change the design. If it works, then make it feel good with art and sfx. That way there is less pressure on you!

[namre]

Like everyone said, prototyping saves a lot of work and time.

However, it doesn't mean that when a prototype turns out alright, the final product will turn out great as well. Especially once you add more to the game during the actual development stage.

[Muz]

IMO, design document does it. Just have a little preamble about why the game is going to be fun. I find that with good concepts I gain more and more momentum. I've managed to kill off the bad ideas because I just can't explain what makes those games fun.

But I mostly focus on RPGs and strategy games... this might not apply so well with platformers and shooters, where the focus is on reflexes. With those, prototypes work much better.

[Theotherguy]

I think a prototype is especially important for small indie developers. You never know exactly how much you're capable of doing until you've tried implementing a simple, stripped-down version of your idea. Design documents and mockups are great too, but you often need a prototype to understand the technical possibilities and limitations of your idea.

[Jonathan Whiting]

As food for thought for the prototype prototype prototype crowd (I'm not a massive fan of prototyping myself, I'd rather get stuck straight in, but I completely understand why you do it):

How do you decide which of your game ideas are worth prototyping?

I have a big ol' list of game ideas that I'd like to make *sometime*, but there's far more than I could possible prototype in any reasonable time-frame.  How do you work out which ones are worth the time?  (I'm not sure I could answer this for myself).

[TheLastBanana]

As was mentioned earlier, play it a bit in your head. Try to think about what parts of it make it interesting, and consider where you might run into roadblocks with it, then adapt the idea. Going to straight to prototype can be a bad idea in some cases - what if the game idea is fun, just not the way that you implemented it? Then you have to start from scratch.
On the other hand, if the game is quick and easy to prototype, there's no reason not to.

[Oddball]

As food for thought for the prototype prototype prototype crowd (I'm not a massive fan of prototyping myself, I'd rather get stuck straight in, but I completely understand why you do it):

How do you decide which of your game ideas are worth prototyping?

I have a big ol' list of game ideas that I'd like to make *sometime*, but there's far more than I could possible prototype in any reasonable time-frame.  How do you work out which ones are worth the time?  (I'm not sure I could answer this for myself).

How big is this list? It usually takes me 2-4 hours to prototype a game. Sure I still have a backlog of game ideas but if I really wanted to prototype them all it wouldn't take too long to clear the list. As for your point about you'd rather get stuck straight in, I see prototyping as getting stuck straight in. If the prototype works out then most of the code is going to go in the final game anyway.

[Jonathan Whiting]

As was mentioned earlier, play it a bit in your head. Try to think about what parts of it make it interesting, and consider where you might run into roadblocks with it, then adapt the idea.

Yeah, I guess that probably does describe the process I end up going through too.  Wasn't quite sure how to vocalize it though, so thanks

I have a big ol' list of game ideas that I'd like to make *sometime*, but there's far more than I could possible prototype in any reasonable time-frame.  How do you work out which ones are worth the time?  (I'm not sure I could answer this for myself).

How big is this list? It usually takes me 2-4 hours to prototype a game. Sure I still have a backlog of game ideas but if I really wanted to prototype them all it wouldn't take too long to clear the list.

Just did a quick count, there's 50+ entries, though that makes me sound more prolific than I actually am.  Most of them are just a kernel of an idea that could eventually be turned into a game rather than fully fledged concepts.

Anyway, my point was less to say "please help me evaluate my ideas for worthiness!", but rather to throw out the idea that prototyping might not be a magic bullet.  At some point *before* prototyping you'll probably need to start evaluating game ideas for worthiness, whether consciously or not.

As for your point about you'd rather get stuck straight in, I see prototyping as getting stuck straight in. If the prototype works out then most of the code is going to go in the final game anyway.

Okay, well it might be our difference is more in our definitions than our attitude then.  I consider a prototype to more of a separate thing, with no consideration placed on code quality etc. as your essentially expecting to throw that away.  If you consider it more of a 'first pass' at the full game, then I reckon when it comes down to it we're pretty much on the same wavelength.

The other thing about the word 'prototype', is it implies code first graphics later.  My coding skills are far stronger than my graphical ones, so more often than not I work graphics first as it's more likely to be my stumbling block.