Aliens in the Desert

One esoteric area of game design that I truly excel in is paper prototyping.  I am the Queen of paper prototyping.  It may be my extensive experience as a table-top gamer, or perhaps my deep love of arts and crafts, but I can prototype anything with just some blank paper, tape and a sharpie.  Actually, maybe I’m the MacGyver of paper prototyping.

But if all our games turn out digital, why paper prototype at all?  There are lots of good reasons for it:

• It’s cheap
• It’s fast
• It’s easy to iterate
• Anyone can do it (no programming required!)
• It can be a fun collaborative excercise
• It opens your creative synapses in a way that staring at a screen doesn’t

When I was at Telltale, I used paper prototyping for just about any “mini-game” type of puzzle I created.  Originally, I actually prototyped most things in Photoshop with clever uses of layers. (I would turn them on and off to represent different states of the puzzle). But I found that paper prototyping had some huge advantages.

First of all, when making things with paper, I was less attached to making things “pretty”.  We are used to seeing pretty things on a computer, and this can actually be a big hang-up to people like me who enjoy pretty things.  I would spend too much time trying to visually represent the puzzle in a clever way, fiddling with this filter or sorting out how to do something specific in Photoshop.  It could be a mental hang up for other people as well, for my “playtesters”.  Artists especially can take things on the computer screen way too literally and get stuck on how the prototype looked rather than whether they understood the puzzle.

Another advantage I found to making a prototype on paper is that I could pick it up and carry it all over the office.  I could place it in front of someone, tell them the rules, and then watch them try to solve it.  This was incredibly less disruptive to my playtesters than either having them come to my desk to try it or to sending them the files and asking them to open it on their own computer.  Even if they don’t have to leave their desks, asking someone to stop what is happening on their computer to put my prototype in front of  all their other windows feels like a hard switch of gears.  It’s a disruption, an intrusion, on what they were doing.  If however, they can just pause by turning from their screens for a moment to look at the paper version, it feels more like a break.  As a result, folks are much more amenable to helping you by playing the prototype.  I also could keep the prototype at my own desk and invite the office (via email) to come try it when they wanted a break.  When players showed up at my desk I didn’t have to disrupt what I was doing on my own computer and when the players left I could easily go back to what I was doing.

The most surprising discovery (at least to me) when I started making all my prototypes with paper was that it helped me think better.  There’s something about turning your back on a computer screen and making something with your hands that really opens up the creative synapses.  With crafts (funny enough) anything is possible.  Sometimes figuring out how to properly represent something in paper is a creative exercise all unto  itself, which in turn works and refreshes the creative parts of your brain.  Within the freedom of paper and the action of physical activity, new possibilities to the problems you are trying to solve can come tumbling like a waterfall.

Just about any system or puzzle can be represented on paper, with some pretty basic supplies.  But to elevate it to a rough and tumble art form of experimentation, I recommend the following tool kit:

Blank white Index Cards — I find lined ones to be hampering to my creative process

A pad of newsprint — Cheaper than printer paper, plus you won’t annoy your co-workers with a perpetually empty paper tray

Colored Markers — Colors are VITAL!  You will need different colors to differentiate between different players or characters, to draw UIs, and to make things clearer for your play-testers.

Scotch tape — Super useful

Some kind of counters — You can make these out of paper as needed, but it is nice to have something like poker chips or those little glass gaming beads around.  I have also used paper clips.

Some kind of little dudes — Helpful to represent locations of player characters, enemies, etc.  I always used my old “Muscle Men” but you can get little plastic army guys or farm animals from a drug store or five and dime.*  In a pinch, coins of various types can work.

Regular Post-Its — I could write a book called “101 uses for post-its in game design”.  Keep a big stack nearby.

Tiny Post-Its — Keep some of these around too.  They are very nice to have for certain things.

Mailer envelopes — Have a bunch of these to keep the individual prototype bits in so you don’t lose them all over your desk.  This is experience speaking.

Scissors — Buy a decent pair and then hide them at your desk.  Scissors are prone to accidental theivery.

This is sort of a minimal list.  Depending on what you are making, other things like glue-sticks, a good (scrap-booking) paper cutter, colored sharpies and many other things might become helpful.  I tend to haunt craft stores and office supply stores, grabbing anything that I wished I had had when I was making a previous prototype.  But you can also be extremely resourceful and frugal if you prefer.

You can make just about anything with some paper, a good pair of scissors, and colored markers.

Following are some very simple guidelines to making a paper prototype.  Remember the goal: to make something that adequately represents the puzzle or game  system to play-testers in a way that makes sense to them.

Guideline #1: Keep it quick!

Make something realtively quickly that is easy to adjust.  This way, you can iterate easily if you see some problems when play-testing.

Guideline #2: Make it Clear!

You will have to explain some things to the player, but the less you have to explain and the more they can infer from the prototype themselves, the happier and more engaged they will be.  Therefore, make sure the aspects of your prototype you want them to figure out are pretty clear.  If you can’t draw at all, and the player is going to interpret a set of pictures, go ahead and find some images through Google, adjust the size properly in Photoshop and then print and cut them out.  Write legibly. Utilize colors.  Find creative ways to represent the prototype as clearly as possible, making it as much like the digital experience as you can.

Guideline #3: Keep it fun!

Sure you could cut little circles out of paper to represent the bad guys, but your tester is going to respond much better to your protoype if you have a handful of plastic chickens instead.  This is a place where paper prototyping really can shine, and where it pays to be arts and crafty.  If it is fun to interact with the pieces you put in front of someone, they will be more interested in helping you test your system or puzzle.

I hope this introduction gets you intrigued and excited to try some paper prototyping.  You might be surprised at just how much fun and useful the medium of paper is.

*Although little cheap plastic dudes are amazingly hard to find in an actual TOY store, as I discovered when prepping for my improv game design workshop recently.

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