Prototyping With Unity

Beamable is the low-code option for rapidly adding social, commerce, and content management features to your live game.

Here are some ideas on how to use Beamable to speed up prototyping.

What Is Prototyping?

Prototyping is the exercise of answering design questions; often early, quickly, and cheaply.

A video game prototype is a raw test that checks functionality, user experience, gameplay, mechanics, and art direction.

Some prototyping happens before production to test whether or not the game idea is worth pursuing. By design, many game ideas do not pass the prototyping stage. These are hard decisions, but the process makes for a better product.

With a deeper understanding of the problem, and potential solutions, game makers can proceed into production with more confidence.

Types of Prototyping

Paper Prototypes - A series of conversations, sketches, mock-ups, and other analog processes
Digital Prototypes - Using interactive technologies, like Unity and Beamable, to bring concepts to life

Depending on the scope of the exercise and the skillet of the team, sometimes a paper prototype makes more sense. However, to bridge the gap between original concept and interactive execution, completing a digital prototype is highly valuable. A team can also create a hybrid of these techniques.

Prototypes answer questions; Does this work? Is this fun?

Scope of Prototyping

Core Game Loop - Prove out if the core, moment-to-moment experience of the game is fun and engaging
Meta Game - Decide how to accomplish goals of social interaction, character progression, player retention, and more...

Timing of Prototyping

Before Production - The traditional approach to prototyping is to start and finish the process before production begins. This can answer key questions about the game concept or game feature concept before allocating a larger budget
During Production / Live Ops - After ramping up the team size and budget and getting started, prototyping continues to be a valuable exercise. For example, a team can create a fresh standalone project to prove out a potential game mechanic, and iterate quickly on it in isolation, before introducing it into the full project

Prototyping With Beamable

Beamable provides an SDK that enables game makers to easily add social, commerce and content management features to their games with a low-code approach that uses drag-and-drop Feature Prefabs inside Unity. The offerings are organized by Feature and powerful Tool Windows.

Focus on what matters — the game, the art, the experience, the story — and leave the rest to Beamable.

Read more about Game Jams With Beamable.

Interested to use Beamable for prototyping? Contact us.

Beamable Features

Feature	Detail	Benefits
A/B Testing	Allow game makers to deploy new functionality to subset of players	Experiment with new features
Identity	Allow player account management	Allows players to safely sign-in for a customized user experience
Admin	UI for game commands and cheats	Create custom commands to ease the testing of all aspects of your prototype
Analytics	Allow game maker to track player behavior	Immediate, out of the box knowledge of what players are doing in the game
Announcements	Allow player to manage announcements	Game makers can try out new ways to communicate with the players
Chat	Allow players to communicate in-game	Players collaborate and discuss strategies during cooperation and trade messages during competition
Cloud Save	Allow player to store progress	Easily store player progress through the game
Connectivity	Indicates status of network connection availability	Elegantly handle unstable internet
Content	Allow game maker to store project-specific data	Externalize core game data for collaboration & updates
Currency	UI for virtual currency	Immediate, out of the box currency (e.g. gold / gems). Players earn & spend
Events	Allow game maker to set up a one-time competition	Create a significant multiplier effect on player engagement with a one-time competition between players
Groups	Allow players to create groups and interact in real-time	Create shared goals between players and functionality to collaborate (e.g. quests)
Inventory	Allow player to manage inventory	Game makers can gift and reward items to players, or require an item for game progress (E.g. lock-and-key puzzles)
Leaderboards	Allow player to manage leaderboard	Immediate, out of the box social and competitive aspects to your game or game feature
Mail	Allows players to manage in-game mail	Immediate, out of the box social and competitive aspects to your game or game feature
Microservices	Create and deploy your own code which we host	Increase security and integrate with server-side APIs
Multiplayer	Allow game makers to create multi-user experiences	Create competitive and cooperative experiences with 2+ players
Notifications	Allow games to send and receive messages through subscriptions.	Increase retention and keep players engaged
Skinning	Allow game maker to customize appearance of UI	Quickly modify the look and feel of the user experience. Experiment and A/B test
Stats	Allow game maker to store player-specific data	Easily store player attributes through the game
Store	Allow player to shop	Create innovative meta-game loops and incentive plans
Tournaments	Allow game maker to set up a recurring tournament	Create a significant multiplier effect on player engagement with a recurring competition between players

Beamable Tool Windows

Each Tool Window allows game makers to develop with and maintain the Beamable Features in the game project.

	Tool Window	Detail
	Configuration Manager	The game configuration administration
	Content Manager	The content item administration
	Login	The game maker account administration
	Microservices Manager	The microservices administration
	Theme Manager	Allow game maker to customize appearance of UI
	Unity Toolbox	The drag & drop palette of Beamable features
	Portal	The web-based project administration

Learning Resources

These learning resources provide a better way to build live games in Unity.

Source	Detail
	Beamable's Official Documentation
	Game Jams With Beamable & Unity
	Unity's Game Prototyping Series
	Asset Store Assets For Prototyping
	Create and deploy server-authoritative C#
	Lessons in Prototyping from Game Design
	Game Prototyping in Unity
	Game Jams & Rapid Prototyping in Unity