[erik]

I assumed this was about video game design, and it took me a minute to catch on that it was board games.

Phase two of this approach, developing 10 prototypes over the course of 6 to 12 months, sounds incredibly labor intensive. Perhaps prototyping board games is easier than prototyping video games. But this seems like it would be a difficult phase to get through, either as a side project, or doing it commercially full time.

[xigency]

Not really, or it shouldn't be. If you have a few hours to spare each day on this hobby and you sit down each day and make a video game that you want to make, in very short time you might have five or ten different games that you've come up with, especially if you're impatient or have a number of different ideas.

You have to consider that a prototype can be very, very rough. If it takes 12 months to make a prototype of a video game, then that's the wrong way to go about making a prototype. This is assuming that the core premise of the game doesn't involve inventing something impossible or solving the halting problem. Even if it involved something tough, you would just have to "fake it" until you figure out what you want to make, anyway.

You should also pick a platform that lets you do things easily, and limit the time you spend. If what motivates you about a game idea is the art and you spend most of your time designing characters or worlds, then after a while you have to treat that as your prototype or put in the minimal effort to combine them, instead of making cut-scenes and making a Final Fantasy game from everything.

The audience for the prototype isn't the final audience either. Maybe it can be friends if they're uncritical but you should really just make it for yourself if you're still in the picking an idea phase.

[BoysenberryPi]

Most if not all game design methods are universal and not restricted to medium. His first two steps are easy to do in a notebook and the 3rd step is also not difficult to accomplish using Unity, Game Maker, or really any engine like those where pushing out a prototype becomes tedious. However in step 3 where he says "playtest+polish it till I’m sure I can’t improve it" for video games this doesn't mean graphically but mechanically which is very doable.

[wingerlang]

It seems easier, you could just have a bunch of papers with the intended action for board game prototyping. Video games needs .. more.

[panglott]

Catchup is a fun game, but prototyping it would not be difficult, for the kind of person that plays games like Havannah at Little Golem. Cat Herders is similar.

I suspect that people who play lots of different abstract games have a lot of prototype components on hand—stuff like different size square and hex boards, generic abstract pieces. Hex is a classic of the genre, and yet has gone long periods without affordable commercial sets being widely available—it's easy to build. Slither is a game you play with a Go set. Catchup you would just need a printed Hex board and some glass gems.

[imarg]

I think the www.onegameamonth.com folks have a different opinion on developing 10 prototypes in 12 months.