That's what they teach in school, but somehow everyone stop using paper and goes directly with the code and happen what happen
Especially the new generations that barely uses paper...
LOL - oh yea. I teach Game Design Theory at a local college. Their first assignment on the first day is to create a game that doesn't use computers... lol - you should see the
look on their faces. Even letting them know that the game has to be simple, and encompass very basic game design principles (try to make it fun to play, has to have a
written simple rule set and a win/lose scenario.) But the idea behind it is to show them that making a game that's fun is actually HARD - and that's BEFORE you add the whole computer component to the mix!
Later in the course we talk about prototyping and I tell them that prototyping is supposed to answer questions about your game design, so you need to answer those questions as quickly as possible so you can make whatever changes you need to make with as little impact on your design schedule as possible. You do this by making your iterative loop as small as possible. If you can prototype using paper and pencil, then DO IT - stay out of a loop that might require coding - because obviously the more "moving parts" you have, the more things you have to error check when things are not working out like you planned!
But I agree with you, Pinco - 100%. I call that "Cowboy Game Development" because of the recklessness of the practice.
-Grimm
