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Prototyping 101: We lost our coder

 3 years ago
source link: https://blog.prototypr.io/prototyping-101-we-lost-our-coder-545f345e1206
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Prototyping 101: We lost our coder

TLDR; When prototyping, we’re always working with a given set of constraints. When these change, like e.g. when a team member leaves, this doesn’t mean we can’t continue to make progress. It just means we need to consider a new design situation, with a new set of design constraints.

I am very fortunate to be working in a game prototyping team. We prototype mobile game concepts using the Unity game engine, meaning that we need a somewhat specialized skillset: game designers, 3d art, ux designers, and a coder.

Recently, we lost the coder on our team, making it much harder to prototype in Unity. None of the other team members can code to the level needed in order to prototype efficiently in Unity.

So the question is: now what?

We can of course get ourselves a new coder, but there are also other options — because in reality, all that has happened is that our design space has changed. Design space being the range of all possible designs and solutions that are available to us, as defined by the constraints we are facing.

Ways we can move forwards

Before, we could do functional Unity prototypes. For a while, we won’t be able to do that. But we can still do paper prototypes. We can do video prototypes like Dropbox did before their product became a reality. We can do board games. But will those things work for testing out digital game concepts?

In games, dynamic interaction is typically a key element. There may be a game environment where you move around, or perhaps you’re playing a puzzle game where the game interface is constantly changing because of your choices. These types of interaction are hard to fake with paper because of their dynamic and changeable nature. Where paper prototyping is great for testing usability and findability in a stable (i.e. unchanging) interface like an app or a web site, it is not equally workable for a dynamic interface.

However

We can still prototype game concepts where the interaction is not code-driven / machine-driven, but rather is based on human to human interaction. A game like chess, for example. Here, the interaction isn’t based on a coded system, but on a set of rules and two humans who provide the interaction. We can design these types of games, and we can prototype them physically. Other examples could be games like Civilisation, or social games, card games, or geogames. There are a lot of options for how these types of games could be prototyped just via human interaction, or by using off-the-shelf existing apps like for example tabletop simulator or location-based apps.

My point is: Change is not necessarily bad

When you’re prototyping, you are always working within a set of given constraints that define what the space of possibilities looks like. These constraints are defined by the available resources, such as time, skillsets, and available technologies. This is the case for any prototyping process. So while it sucks that we are losing our only programmer on the team, it does NOT mean that we have no options to work with. It simply means that the given constraints change, and that our design space is different.

In fact I would argue that this is not a negative thing at all. Quite the contrary, it can be a very beneficial thing, because stricter design constraints can contribute to a much more clear definition of the directions you can take your ideas. This is helpful in creating focus and clarity when you’re generating ideas.

Thanks for reading!

If you like my writing, you can show your support with a donation on https://flattr.com/@skjoldbroder

And don’t worry — we didn’t lose our coder. He’s fine. He’s just relocating to another city and found a new, exciting job much closer to his family :)

Further defining “design space”

To just briefly talk a bit about this term — design space is basically a term for “all the ideas you can come up with, and all the solutions you can build”. You could also call it a combination of problem space and solution space. The things you can design in this space = the problems you could choose to solve given the constraints you are under + the solutions you are able to create. I’ve written a little about exploration of the solution space in this article, if you’re interested in the subject:


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