• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 05:17
CEST 11:17
KST 18:17
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-228Weekly Cups (July 27-Aug 2): SHIN's big week0SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-69SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-64PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August)14
StarCraft 2
General
Protoss AoE skill expression Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Serral wins HomeStory Cup 29 StarCraft 2 at SC4ALL II Invite #4/8 - Percival 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)
Tourneys
RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-22 RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Tasteless Time Warp: SC Evo Showmatch (May 25)
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 538 Media Blackout The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 537 Hostile Territory Mutation # 536 Railroad Switch
Brood War
General
How FlaSh Nearly Forfeited MSL Finals being late BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Are you ready for ASL 22? NEW HYPE VIDEO BW General Discussion ASL22 General Discussion
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues 2v2v2v2 Tournament KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3 Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Any training maps people recommend? Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Diablo 2 thread ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live!
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Iain M Banks Says He Has Cancer And Months To Live European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Games Industry And ATVI
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
NBA General Discussion Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
What is a Gamer?
TrAiDoS
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 4689 users

Game prototype. One step further to confusion.

Blogs > 0x64
Post a Reply
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4633 Posts
February 22 2015 11:57 GMT
#1
For the last few weeks, I've been working on a little Celtic prototype.
You can try it here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12835591/AmadanArena/AmadanArena.html
Disclaimer: Prototypes are not even close to alpha or anything you usually get when you play a game. They are meant to test fundamental aspect of the possible future game, testing if the game idea might be fun.

I have now removed the Quest and adventure aspects to focus more on the character progression and fighting/path selection aspect.

The game is starting to shape up but I still can't figure out how to make the fighting mechanics clear to the player.
The fighting is already confusing without the stamina mechanics.
It's hard to wrap your head around as a designer, that something is unclear .

For one, my mechanics have a wait "Action". Players hate to do this. It has no effect but it can be used to save other important action while the opponent is using defensive moves.
Yet, it is the mechanic that define your weakness, the better you are, the less wait percents changes you have to draw a wait.

This is not a big issue later, once you understand the strategic use of Wait. The problem is that new players are the one drawing the most of the card they dislike the most, while not understanding why that card is out there.

Now, this could be changed in various way and this blog helps me put down some thoughts on "paper".

1. Remove wait and give the player a missing rate.
2. Remove wait from the tutorial and rename "wait" to something else
3. Remove wait and replace it by rest. Makes sense, everyone loves extra stamina and the turn is not wasted. Interesting effect to balance...

Any other idea?
I could also just redo the whole fighting mechanics but I find these fresh once you have 3 column to chose actions from. Maybe let the player start with 2 columns right from the start...
So many things to try !


TLDR: Don't bother trying game prototypes if you don't have the time to read :D


Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
boon2537
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States905 Posts
February 22 2015 19:36 GMT
#2
It's nice that your have almost all your art assets ready for your prototype. I often have to use place holder graphics for a long ass time because I always procrastinate using my non-existent art skill to make an acceptable looking graphic lol.

Good luck with your game!
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4633 Posts
February 22 2015 19:56 GMT
#3
On February 23 2015 04:36 boon2537 wrote:
It's nice that your have almost all your art assets ready for your prototype. I often have to use place holder graphics for a long ass time because I always procrastinate using my non-existent art skill to make an acceptable looking graphic lol.

Good luck with your game!


Heh thanks, but that's just a fluke, we had a project last summer that clearly went over our head so we stopped the production after 2 months so I have those asset and even have 3d models but that's might be used for some future prototypes.

There are two school of thoughts. Some says that prototypes shouldn't have art because it distracts from the pure gameplay and shrouds it.
Others think that on the contrary, lack of presentation draws so much attention of the tester that people don't get to enjoy the game like it should and the results are inconclusive.

It's hard and I guess if you have a solid group of game designers as friends (Like guys such as Jonathan Blow has) you can just share things looking bad but playing good and get useful feedback.

On my side, I haven't been able to figure it out. Most of the feedback is bug reports and obvious stuff.

Now, I a wondering if I should release this version and test the mobile market while I'm working on the next prototype, or should I use 2-3 more weeks to polish this... Really hard decisions!
Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
OSC
00:00
OSC Elite Rising Star #20
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 2737
Hyuk 2519
Jaedong 314
Larva 278
PianO 227
JulyZerg 198
BeSt 193
Soma 174
Tasteless 125
ggaemo 49
[ Show more ]
Shine 48
scan(afreeca) 40
ZergMaN 30
sorry 29
yabsab 22
Sharp 16
Rush 10
Counter-Strike
olofmeister1513
shoxiejesuss1454
Other Games
summit1g6170
singsing1532
ceh9699
Happy396
Mew2King103
Livibee18
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick663
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• StrangeGG 37
• LUISG 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota2300
League of Legends
• Lourlo1284
• HappyZerGling111
Upcoming Events
WardiTV Weekly
1h 43m
The Patches Monday
6h 43m
Sparkling Tuna Cup
1d
PiG Sty Festival
1d 2h
PiGosaur Cup
1d 14h
Replay Cast
1d 23h
Kung Fu Cup
2 days
Replay Cast
2 days
The PondCast
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
[ Show More ]
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-09
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
Acropolis #5
RSL Revival: Season 6
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W7
CSLAN 4
ASL Season 22
Escore Tournament S3: W8
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
META DYMY #4
Thunderpick World Champ.
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.