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Prototypes Can Kill Progress

12/3/2012

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I've noticed something since getting the prototype for I Thought There'd Be Zombies!, and I wonder if others have experienced the same thing. I feel like the quality of the production has stymied rapid development of the game.

With After the Fall I spent a fair amount of time making the early prototypes decent looking and playable, but they were not very expensive or high quality. I used printable business cards for the cards and printed paper for the mats. The counters were Smarties!

The game progressed very rapidly, changing with each play test, sometimes drastically. I did spend time on the graphic design as the game changed, but the components themselves were disposable and felt that way--easy to replace. Usually each play would have several (if not all) new components.

To some extent Archon Arena went through a similar lifecycle. Early prototypes were business cards. Often I'd simply write changes on them rather than reprint the cards. After ordering real cards, the gameplay has changed much more slowly. The second set of cards basically just reflected a redesign of the layout, and very little has changed since then.

Maybe it's just the natural progression of game design. As the game gets more concrete, the prototypes get better, therefore, there are fewer and fewer changes. The key then is to time the quality of prototyping properly to coincide with the level of completion of the game.

With I Thought There'd Be Zombies! I feel like perhaps the good prototype came too early. The game is fun as is and certainly playable, but I continue to second guess basic elements of it. It'd be a lot easier, mentally, to make drastic changes if it didn't involve throwing out a $10 game board and/or $20 worth of cards.

It'd be great to hear from anyone else who's had experience with this phenomenon. Is it just me, or can high quality early prototypes virtually kill a game?
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After the Fall Production Update

10/8/2012

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While researching other projects on KickStarter, I found a link to the Game Crafter. Turns out they do exactly what I need- make one-off copies of board games for demos.

One thing that caught my eye was their choice of smaller cards, 'mini' and 'micro' versions. Doing some quick calculations, it seemed that I could (once again) redesign the After the Fall player mats using these small cards for Producers and Converters. This would open up space to make the resource tracks bigger, to use regular chits.
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The funny thing is this reverts to a very early design I had using cards instead of tracking the Production separately.

The other exciting thing about the Game Crafter is that they have a tool for estimating the price of producing a game. I did the tally, and it came out somewhere around $55. Too much to sell the game, but definitely OK for getting a nice version for myself.

Best of all, they're in Madison, WI. I can drive over there to pick everything up, see it right away, and save shipping charges.
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    Dusty (CrassPip) has been playing geek games for 30 years(!) and making his own for nearly as long. Recently, he's actually gotten games beyond the imagination stage.

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