The creation of the prototype can be described as walking through mud but with a compass pointing where to go. 

Starting at the concept document, the only mechanic I wanted to test and could reasonably create within a short enough time frame to test, was the fishing mechanic. The first test was to see if I could even create the mechanic of an object spinning around a base with orb’s to collect. Which was possible due to the assistance of a tutorial I found online. One that went into the recreation of a mobile game called Pop the Lock. Though I originally wanted to have select areas where the player would have to click to gain points. I changed it to collecting orb’s due to testing out that in practice a player would just spam click a big enough green area to collect all the points they needed. So now the idea is that a player is collecting orb’s that increase a bar and once the bar is full, they win a fish. 

On the note of the concept document, the feedback I received mainly discussed an issue with long-term progression being seemingly boring due to the idea being all the player did was collect different fish. Which is why I added on the bobber mechanic to add some reward to collecting fish, and change up how the fishing mechanic works out. Though the feedback mentioned that I should add more variety to how I handle my bobber mechanic, that is an issue to handle later. As without a core fishing mechanic to base off the bobber’s cannot become more challenging versions that either change the way the orb’s work, or how the grip system works. 

As seen within this picture the orange triangle spins around within the red circle. As the triangle overlaps with a green circle and the player clicks with their mouse button. The bar on the left goes up a little. 

I was using the Unity game engine for the first time in a while, and while I had a tutorial to help me get through it. The challenge of relearning something is ever present. While Unity was the only tool I used to create this game, the reason why I chose it was because of its vast library of tutorials that could assist me with any coding challenges I may come upon. 

Which brings up the biggest issue that I have found with making this prototype. The game itself is fairly boring, as one has to wait for the triangle to get close enough to the green orb so as to not lose grip. Which takes a while, but they cannot relax as if they mess up and the bar gets low enough they lose that fish. Which is why bobber’s exist, after the player catches enough fish they will get the option to change the core gameplay loop in small ways. Some ideas are that the bobber could be moving quicker but the orb’s are larger, the grip bar could slowly go down but each time a green orb is hit it will gain more points, or their only being one small orb with the grip bar starting high and slowly draining till the player is able to hit the small orb and catch the fish in one fell swoop. 

Overall, the creation of this prototype was a learning experience as to create a simple game idea and slowly over time add stuff onto it. As that way you promise a simple game and if fate allows it you can deliver a fun experience.