The Fastest Way to Find Out If a Game Idea Works

I missed last week’s newsletter, so first, sorry about that.

I was not taking a break. I was actually doing the opposite. I spent most of the week building a bunch of small game prototypes to see which ideas had the best legs.

I have a few game ideas I really like, but liking an idea is not enough. A game can sound great in your head and fall apart the second you play it.

So instead of thinking about them for another month, I built them.

One of those prototypes is called Project Mercy for now, and I want you to play it.

Project Mercy is a dark fantasy incremental strategy game about trying to keep an army alive against an overwhelming horde.

You play as a powerful Paladin who watches the battle from above. Your army is heavily outnumbered, and the enemy keeps pushing forward.

You do not control each soldier.

Instead, you use a few powerful abilities to help the army survive. You can heal soldiers, protect them, increase their damage, or strike the enemy.

The battle keeps getting worse until your army finally falls.

Then you improve your abilities and try again.

That is the main loop I am testing right now.

The idea is simple. I want the player to feel like they are watching a huge battle while making a few important choices that can change how long their army survives.

The first version of PM was much closer to a normal defense game.

The Hero stood near a stronghold. Enemies attacked from one side. You recruited soldiers, used abilities, and tried to stop the enemy from breaking through.

It worked, but I was not that excited while playing it.

The problem was that I was paying too much attention to small fights between individual units.

That was not the part I cared about.

The part I liked was seeing a huge army slowly get overwhelmed.

I wanted the game to feel more like 10,000 soldiers trying to survive against 100,000.

So I simplified the design.

Now the armies act more like two large forces pushing against each other. Your job is to step in at the right moments and help your side survive longer.

That version felt much closer to the game I had in my head.

I used AI heavily while building this prototype.

I am a programmer, so I am comfortable working on mechanics, numbers, and systems. The slow part is usually building enough of an idea to find out if it is actually fun.

AI helps shorten that process.

I can play the game, notice a problem, describe exactly what feels wrong, and then use AI to help me change the prototype.

For example, I noticed that upgrading healing and shields did not really help the player survive longer.

That was a problem because defensive upgrades should feel useful.

So I changed the balance, tested it again, and compared the results.

That loop can happen very quickly.

AI does not decide what the game should be. I still have to play it, judge what works, and decide what needs to change.

What AI does well is help me get from an idea to something playable faster.

That is the part I find most useful.

I spent last week testing several ideas because I wanted to stop guessing which one I should work on next.

Some ideas were fun right away.

Some had good mechanics but would take a lot of art and animation.

Some were simple to build but did not feel strong enough once I played them.

That is useful information.

A prototype does not need to look good. It needs to answer a question.

For Project Mercy, the question is simple:

Is watching a huge battle and stepping in with powerful abilities fun enough to build a full game around?

I have my own answer, but now I need people who did not design the game to play it.

If you have a few minutes, play the prototype and tell me what you think.

I am mostly looking for simple reactions.

You do not need to write a long review.

A few sentences about what felt good, what felt weak, and whether you would play more is enough.

That is the whole point of sharing the prototype this early.

I would rather learn now than spend six months building the wrong version of the game.