Level 5.3: The Non-Digital Designer's Prototyping Kit

The Non-Digital Designer's Prototyping Kit

What follows is a list of materials that I have personally found useful when prototyping. Other designers may have their favorite materials, so I look forward to seeing the discussion that will inevitably be generated by this list:

Paper, of several varieties: blank, lined, and graph. These are useful for general note-taking, and for the fast construction of makeshift game boards and other surfaces.
Colored pens and pencils. Obviously you need something to write with. Colors give an easy way to differentiate between game elements, or to annotate your game components.
Index cards (3″x5″). These make it easy to make cards. They shuffle reasonably well. You can cut them in halves or thirds for different card sizes. You can also just write ideas down on these and tape them on the wall, making it easy to arrange your thoughts visually. These are versatile and cheap.
Scissors and tape. For breaking things apart and sticking them together, respectively. These are to game design what WD-40 and duct tape are to handymen, for the same reasons.
Paper clips and/or binder clips. This lets you store related materials in one place. For example, if you create several “decks” of index cards, this lets you hold them together so they don’t get mixed up with each other (or worse, mixed up with cards from other prototypes).
Glass beads (sometimes called “Pente stones”) in different colors. These make great markers, counters, and playing pieces.
Dice, of varying types (4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sided). Several of each type, in different colors. These provide independent random variables (as opposed to the dependent randomness of card draws). For more information on the uses of dice and cards, see Chapter 5 in theChallenges text. Note that dice can also make decent playing pieces that can simultaneously “store” a single number on them — for example, a six-sided die could represent a warrior with up to 6 hit points.
A small bag of low-value coins (pennies in the United States, and I admit ignorance to how other countries handle coin-based currency). Coins make good markers, they can be flipped for a random variable, they have two sides so they can represent either of two states (such as which of two players currently controls them), and they can be stacked more easily than dice or glass beads.
Colored sticky-dots (small round adhesive labels). You can put them on stones, dice or pennies to mark them, differentiate them, or customize them. You can write on the dots to provide additional information if needed.
A paper notebook that is kept with your prototypes and used exclusively for taking notes in playtests. This is not something you want to accidentally lose track of!

Where do you find these things? It depends where you live. Most, you can get at an office supply store (Staples, Office Depot and Office Max are the big stores near where I live; you may have others), except for dice, glass beads, and coins. The coins, you can get at a bank (in the United States, you can get a hundred pennies for only one dollar — a bargain by any standard for quality game components ). Dice are generally found in hobby-game stores or comic-book shops, or purchased online. Glass beads can be found in a variety of places. Hobby-game stores have them. Pet stores that sell fish equipment may sell them as aquarium stones. Art/craft hobby stores may sell them as glass beads for jewelry and craft projects. They also come as components with many games (notably Pente), if you can find a game with glass beads for cheap.

Craft and hobby stores, both the retail chains and online (Michael’s is the big chain store in my area), can offer great inspiration for game designers. I’ve found large quantities of unpainted and colored wooden cubes (great as resource markers and also as custom dice) and wooden discs (they feel better and are larger than pennies). Once, I found a set of flat painted wooden cut-outs, maybe an inch square, of bunnies and another set of carrots; I don’t know what I’ll ultimately do with them, but there is a game that will be made with them some day. Craftparts Links to an external site. has wooden people-shaped pawns and square tiles in various sizes. These kinds of quality components may not be immediately suitable for quick-and-dirty paper prototypes, but they can certainly come into use as your project becomes more developed.