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Chapter 1: Building Great iOS Games
We didn’t want Traffic to be just another line-drawing game, so we brain-
stormed further — striking upon the idea of a three-lane traffic system with
different colored cars. As shown in Figure 1-2, the idea evolved over time,
starting at a line-drawing game and ending at a traffic-swiping game. (We dis-
cuss how we evolved the game for the iPad in Chapter 19.)
Figure 1-2:
The evolu-
tion of
the game
from paper
sketches.
Evolving the Game
No game idea comes fully formed, and it’s important to try several
approaches to a game concept before you commit your time to actual devel-
opment. To do this, you must reduce the cost of throwing away ideas. And
you’ll throw away plenty of ideas. Trust us on that. One of the cheapest ways
to try out ideas is to do so on paper.
Prototyping on paper
You may laugh, but drawing your game on paper (as shown in Figure 1-2) is
one of the most important things you can do to make sure you’re building a
truly great game. So, how do you draw your game without feeling like a fool?
And how do you make sure what you’re drawing is useful?
To effectively prototype your game on paper, you need a few things; all are
very cheap and easy to acquire. Here’s the list.
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