I use the same sites over and over in my prototypes, and while I credit individual contributors there’s rarely a chance to mention the sites as a whole. Let’s rectify that here.

Freesound.org is a great resource for sound effects. It’ll rarely have exactly what you want, but it probably has something close enough to be worth editing into the right form.

If you’re looking for music rather than effects, the Free Music Archive is just the ticket. Aesthetic preferences make it harder, in my experience, to find “just right” music than SFX–and of course, editing music is more difficult as well. Nevertheless, it’s a valuable resource.

Art isn’t trivial to come by, but I get a lot of use out of Game-icons.net. Easy-to-parse and attractive is what I want for prototypes.

When it’s time to use colors (e.g., for layouts), Adobe has a database of attractive color swatches. Their tool for automatically applying color theory is remarkable, too.

Font Squirrel has become my go-to site for typographical assistance. It gets bonus points for making it easy to tell up front how the different fonts are licensed.

All of these sites have been very helpful to me. I highly recommend giving them a look; I expect you’ll find them the same.

Dear Me,

Just a gentle reminder that physical production always takes longer than it seems like it will. Remember Scotty’s rule: whatever your actual estimate is, quadruple it.

All best,

You

• If you can’t say with certainty how many times a loop is going to run, it’s going to cause crashes.
• There’s a limit to how many statements can be nested before code becomes unreadable. A three-deep nest is OK. Five deep is a lot. Seven is begging for errors.
• Comment every function with, at the least, a brief statement of what it’s meant to do and what its arguments are.
• Javascript will let you get away with anything. That doesn’t mean you should feel free to do everything. Stick to good form; it might not be interesting, but it will only break in relatively predictable ways.
• Learn coding best practices, and force yourself to use them. Formatting, good use of functions, even proper variable naming–all of these will save you time in the long run.
• “If you’ve only backed up in one place, you haven’t backed up.”
• Don’t set code aside for too long; you’ll forget how it all hangs together, and lose time working back through it from scratch. Keep it current in your mind.
• On the flip side, don’t beat your head against a wall. If you haven’t solved a problem over the course of a few hours’ work you’re not going to solve it in that session. Do something else for a while.
• Coding involves working on the computer, and that can be distracting–not least because you’ve probably already got a browser window open to look at Stack Exchange or documentation. Be rigorous with yourself about not doing fun stuff when you should be working.
• As a game designer you can solve technical problems in two ways: the technical route and the design route. If a technical problem is proving unmanageable, put your design skills to good use. Find a way to change the game so that it’s in line with your technical skills.

Just as some examples of what building with 3×5 cards can do:

A simple structure. Note that the slight differences in the shape of the cylinders allow them to stack just like solid blocks would. In addition, it’s possible to build high even with fairly shaky architecture.

There’s no need, however, to be content with poor architectural design. This tower is quite stable; the cards are light, but everything is balanced and supported.

It’s even possible to be a bit fancy while retaining structural strength. The bottom of this tower has fewer parts than the top, but there’s enough weight to keep it together. It survived for quite some time just sitting on the rug while I walked around.

A side benefit of building towers out of 3×5 card “blocks” is that they fall without making a tremendous racket or (assuming they’re used in a reasonable way) causing any damage. New parents playing Jenga will wake up a sleeping child when the game ends; card “blocks” fall with a sound like, well, rustling paper.

3×5 cards can also be written on to create marked blocks. That isn’t an option with when dealing with nice wood. 😉

Ultimately the neat thing about 3×5 cards isn’t that they’re ideal for any one purpose; it’s that they can be put to a multitude of uses–some of which don’t look very much like traditional applications of a card. Every time I need to prototype they’re the first tool I turn to, and they rarely prove unsuitable. I can’t say it enough: keep 3×5 cards handy. They’ll work more often than you think they will.

Administration relating to starting at NYU has taken up a lot of time recently, but yesterday and today I’ve finally been able to set some time aside to sit down and design. I’m glad of that, because I’ve had an idea I’m keen to try out.

This idea happens to involve blocks–lots of them, in various shapes. I don’t have blocks in my home, though, and I wasn’t excited about purchasing them just to test an idea that might not work. So, what to do?

The answer, as always, was: 3×5 cards.

It turns out that 3×5 cards keep their shape when folded, so long as one applies a bit of tape. Furthermore, they don’t have the natural curve that paper does. A 3×5 card folded into a box stays a box, with flat sides suitable for stacking.

I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: don’t ever let a lack of prototyping materials stop you from pursuing a design. Prototyping doesn’t have to be complicated, and it certainly doesn’t have to be expensive. Dollar store supplies are plenty for a first run of a new concept.