Unity Game Dev — Benefits of Prototyping without Assets

There are good reasons to prototype your game with simple game objects before bringing in the final game assets. Prototyping your game using basic game objects allows you to very quickly put together a working proof of concept and show what the final game play will look and feel like. Testers will not be distracted by the visual art and can focus on enhancing the game-play and can more easily pin-point trouble areas.

For example, without any type of description, you can tell that the game seen below is some type of shooter with enemies flying towards the payer while they try to shoot or dodge them. You can test out much of the game play while it is in the prototype stage.

If you are working on a team and have someone who does nothing but game asset and art design, they can make this prototype shine with any number of themes.

I’ll be using space ships, lasers, and fire/explosion assets to create a Space Shooter game. None of the player movement, laser behavior, or enemy movement code will need to be changed.

But you could just as easily make this into a chicken shooting eggs at attacking sharp dressed hitmen (seriously — what is happening in the gif below??)

But seriously, it is worth the time to prototype your ideas before getting too far along. You might find things do not work out like you expected or you might think of a better way to accomplish the same task along the way. Either way it will save you time in the long run.

So, having done just that, let’s add the Space Shooter 2D assets and make game look awesome! Join me tomorrow!