When making a game in which the first thing the player sees upon joining is a menu, or more often a lobby in the case of Roblox, is it common practice to start with creating a rudimentary game prototype anyway? I’m conflicted on this as there are advantages to both sides that don’t exactly help in choosing a clear winner.
We can see it in two ways:
Creating in the order of what players see/encounter
Creating the core gameplay first, then create a lobby to go with it
Normally, this wouldn’t have made a big difference, but some games have lots of preparations needed to be done before entering a match. Examples of games would be Dungeon Quest and Tower Defense Simulator where you can change your loadout or buy new characters while in the lobby, and a map selection that teleports you to another place.
Scripting a lobby and everything a player can do before searching for a match would help streamlining the creation process because it’s simply preparing what the players will make use of when playing. Downside is that if the game turns out to not be fun, then a significant amount of time would have been wasted.
On the other hand, scripting the gameplay first allows to design it and to balance it out right from the beginning. However, making the lobby after feels like going backward.
I would feel as though polishing the main gameplay would be your best bet, you can add onto the queuing/setting up part to that as well by creating a rudimentary build of the game, have everything feel just the way you want it to work and at the same time, it’ll allow you to fix bugs that could possibly happen so that you don’t run into annoying problems during the game and have to search through 100 of instances of UIs/parts to find what you need to fix.
Though overall, its mostly your choice on whether or not you want to start with the lobby or the main mechanic of the entire game
I’m now leaning towards starting with the gameplay as well. I agree that the best time to explore with mechanics is when the project is new and fresh as it is easier to go through everything. After all, I might lose motivation if too much effort is put before actually getting into the exciting part .
Sometimes I start with the Lobby Menu, but only if I need motivation and i’m just staring at a blank studio trying to figure out what to make.
If I have a set idea, and i’m trying to pump it out as quickly as possible, then i’d go for the gameplay. Always start with the hardest things in your game, if you can get past those obstacles, you can get past anything!
I think the gameplay is the most important element.
Think of it as a business.
The gameplay is essentially a businesses’ product.
The lobby is like the advertisement and branding.
You would never create an ad nor branding for a corporation or business that does not have a product to offer. You perfect your product and let the rest come latter. Most massive games originally started off with great gameplay but little to no lobby, and then upgraded later.
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