An MVP in the gaming space is a complete demonstration of your core gameplay loop. For example, an MVP Pokemon game would have one urban and one area with tall grass, 2-3 Pokemon, 2-3 NPCs with dialogue, 2-3 NPCs with that challenge you to battles, a working battle system with 2-3 moves (no need to to stuff like status effects, buffs, types, resistances, etc), wild random encounters. It's quite more comprehensive than an MVP in a consumer product, but even the description above can be cut down substantially. An RPG MVP for example could be just a player character walking around a city.

All the graphics for the game above can use placeholders, or even solid colors.

Interesting comparing the answers here that are for a "looks-like" vs a "works-like" prototype, ref: https://predictabledesigns.com/the-essential-guide-to-protot...

Having no experience in gamedev, I could imagine that as in other fields these milestones are a bit orthogonal. You need a works-like prototype for internal use to confirm the basic questions like "is it fun" before committing to polish, and you need that vertical slice looks-like prototype to do demos, make a sizzle reel for Kickstarter, convince investors, etc.

The excellent NoClip doc on Horizon Zero Dawn talks about them actually making a handful of prototypes that explored various aspects of the game's mechanics (combat, traversal, etc) and then having to figure out how to integrate those concepts into a single entity. There are a few clips at https://youtu.be/h9tLcD1r-6w?t=1186 that show a very early demo of the Thunderjaw concept, with the destroyable parts just as big colored boxes.

On the other side of things, it's wild when you look at a game like Hollow Knight: Silksong, for which there was a reveal trailer over two years ago that showed seemingly dozens of fully finished environments, enemy encounters, etc— but in terms of the overall stage of the project, it must have been in alpha or pre-alpha at that point (unless it's encountered some significant unforeseen development barriers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFAknD_9U7c

You go for a looks-like prototype when you have a team and want to inspire them to move forward, when you want to impress investors or when you are planning a Kickstarter or similar. You go for a works-like prototype when you're experimenting with concepts or want to try out something new. You're completely correct in your assessment.

IIRC Silksong was originally planned as a DLC for the original instead of a sequel, which may be why they had so much ready

True, and maybe there's been a significant reworking of the overall structure since that teaser was produced. At the same time, you can't shake the feeling that that video is pitching something available in a few months, not that's years away.

That depends on the size of your company, but for AA/AAA type games, this is usually a so-called "Vertical slice". It's a demo that shows off a small piece of a game working fully (so demonstrating main systems, UI, etc.) that is then used to pitch full development to publishers.

It's rought equivalent to a pilot for a TV series: https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/77406994278/game-develop...

EDIT: I just remembered the other alternative - Early Access. This allows the developers to sell the game before it's complete and solicit gamer testing/feedback during the development process while iterating. It's a popular approach for smaller studios.

There’s traditionally a milestone during production called “vertical slice”, where the developer would present a segment of the game that’s meant to represent the final product. They’re not necessarily considered best practice, since a developer might have to pantomime that the game’s in a finished state when they still have a lot of work to do. Tim Rogers describes it akin to making a cake one slice at a time.

Mark Cerny, a developer for a lot of Sega and Sony titles, always suggests an experimental pre-production phase and a structured production. The former is meant to figure out the requirements for the latter and clarify the nature of the product.

The market is really harsh so I'm not sure you can actually make an MVP without making a polished, finished game.

You can noodle on mechanics, art direction, story, etc with a small team before you go into production but you probably won't have an actual viable product coming out of that stage.

Well, there is the Steam Early Access - mind you games need to be at least partly polished and quite playable before entering there. But the public is more forgiving of "early beta" quality at least there. Sometimes alpha if the game is obviously a gem waiting to be polished.

What you do is build your gameplay with the absolute minimum of graphics. For example if you want to build a platformer, start with a red square for your player character, blue squares for enemies, brown boxes for terrain. Do the physics first and add your unique gameplay ideas, but with the absolute minimum of artwork. No sound or music (unless your gameplay ideas require them). Once you have something fun to play with in this state, then you can add art.

That's not normally an MVP game, which needs to be the minimum viable product. Of course, this is targeted to the audience. If your audience is a gameworld of blocks, that might work :-).

As many others have pointed out, a vertical slice is the term that applies to this vertical of making games. So, even the terms are audience specific - MVP for owners and Vertical Slice for staff.

Yes, but that doesn't sound like a MVP. A MVP (in this case) should be playeable. No one will play a platformer with a red square.

Surely you jest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/220780/Thomas_Was_Alone/

Has a lot of sound and music though. Its an animated square with jump anims etc. A lot more work went into that game than whats described above.

It's sad for Super Meat Boy that the comments underneath yours keep insisting it's "just a platformer with a red square".

The point is that Super Meat Boy would still be a fun game even if the player character was just a red square. It wouldn't have the same commercial success without the artwork and music, but you can easily see how you could make an MVP and have it still be a fun game, then add the graphics after.

Super meat boy happened to have an extremely fast dev cycle. It only took 18 months to make the engine and game! https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134717/postmortem_tea...

I get what you're saying, but if you read the replies, that's not what they're saying. Exact quote: "Super Meat Boy is basically that" (meaning, basically a red square).

Sure they will, if the gameplay is compelling. Maybe they won't pay full price for it (though there are many examples of games with very basic graphics that sell just fine), but an MVP doesn't need to be profitable. What you need at the MVP stage are playtesters who you can validate your gameplay ideas on.

You are confusing MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with MCP (Minimum Compelling Product). The red square is enough to enable key decision makers to assess the viability of the product. It is not intended to be a compelling product in that state.

Super Meat Boy had done exactly that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Meat_Boy

I recently played Super Meat Boy. It's a great game and the character is basically a red square.

Often it's a vertical slice with gameplay mostly done and assets of medium to high quality. Since assets are expensive to make this allows you to build a mostly complete product without cutscenes and 50 levels but without too much effort.

You often don't ship this MVP to the public but use it to attract publishers or to demo at game conferences.

[Oped below]

So much of what makes a game good is art and feel based so testing early and often whether you're on the right track is important. Game studios that are smaller have to do this. Larger ones can take the hit if they make a bad call in favor of controlling the marketing/presentation more carefully. I'm not entirely sure how they test. Similar to developers I think most people in the game development industry have good or reasonable instincts about games that would work.

> So much of what makes a game good is art and feel based so testing early and often whether you're on the right track is important. Game studios that are smaller have to do this. Larger ones can take the hit if they make a bad call in favor of controlling the marketing/presentation more carefully. I'm not entirely sure how they test. Similar to developers I think most people in the game development industry have good or reasonable instincts about games that would work.

I think I’m in the minority, but I really care very little about the art and feel; I’m die-hard about the mechanics of the game. I hear people ranting and raving about the “cinematic quality of the game art” and I find myself thinking, “I mean, that’s nice, but there are all of these glaring issues with weapon balance and map design, the net code favors laggy players, the time-to-kill is so low that network rather than skill dominates the outcome of almost every confrontation, and the server randomly disconnects people...”. I play a lot of first person shooters, and I rarely care whether the “skin” of the game is futuristic, present day, WWII era, etc as long as the mechanics are right.

Never saw the responses. I agree with you that the mechanics come first. Game feel is so important. Graphics don’t need to be amazing for good game feel.

I'm with you there. I (not a game dev) imagine that balance is hard to find, particularly when choosing the right moment to release. I remember playing "Age of Conan" (the mmo) when it was released and in my opinion while the graphics were good, the game-play was hilariously out of balance (or buggy). My younger self found exploiting the lopsided game-play very enjoyable, but ultimately didn't stick around for too long. If the balance was reversed (more polished game mechanics, less polished art) my friends and I probably would have made it a staple.

But to each their own! It's nice to see the variety available from movie-like experiences to pixel art with all ranges of game mechanics.

What you're looking for is called a "Vertical Slice" in games. The systems you intend to build done as mocks or stubs, used to convey the overall sense a game is meant to convey. You have to build a lot, but it serves the same purpose of checking to see if people actually like a game/its mechanics. Also, in a vertical slice, you can use unpolished game assets or just graybox everything. The point is the "feel", not necessarily any individual look or mechanic.

Here's a good video from an excellent series:

Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product - Scope Small, Start Right - Extra Credits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCri1tqIxQ

It's been a while since I've watched it, but I think you should take MVP to mean "what's the smallest game I can build to tell whether it is fun" and not "what is the smallest thing I can build that people will buy".

You are correct that the purpose of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is to test if the idea is viable. As you point out you can generally assess the viability of a product long before you have a compelling product (Minimum Compelling Product = MCP)

Interesting. I've never heard of an MCP before. I like the idea.

We are working on a 3d mobile game and we have both the concept of mvp and vertical slices.

Vertical slice is the product we show to management.It's crude and only has the most core elements. No music very few sounds no introduction. Something similar to a prealpha product that you can play with.

MVP in our company is like beta products that you put on the stores, those early access ones. You get full audio, polished visuals, full FTUE and the means of payment, etc. Basically a full game but with a bery limited amount of gameplay contents. Say Doom but only with e1m1 and e1m2.

Then we grow from there and add a lot of things if it looks good. We first push the MVP (early access) to Tier-3 countries and then gradually open access to all countries if the revenue looks good. We kill it if it doesn't pose a positive return after some tweaking. The majority of programming frameworks are done at this stage but new contents still need code here and there. Eventually you are planning new major features e. g. pvp that needs new frameworks but that's probably months after MVP.

MVP implies sales stretched over time, which is unlike the traditional AAA games and the movies industry processes they copy.

An MVP for a game is the cheapest playable version of the game you intend to make. It's hard to say anything else because games are an even more general category than apps: you might find out that you want a physical boardgame.

Really depends on who you are selling to. If you look at things as a startup you are selling to both investors and your customers.

From a games perspective the customer is actually much more picky than investors and the market is hard to get discovered in. Your MVP is a finished game.

For industry investors (publishers) it depends on your pedigree and connections to a large extent. No name, first time indies will find it hard to get a bad publishing deal without a nearly complete game. Well connected industry veterans will have a deal worth millions based on a pitch alone even prior to starting a studio.

For more traditional startup investors you need pedigree, an idea of how you'll scale, some evidence that you can actually build the thing and to be in a segment hitting the zeitgeist. For example over the last few years doing something with mobile GaaS, VR/AR, blockchain, cloud streaming/native and so on.

What's the MVP of a painting? Or a film?

I'd argue that if your goal is MVP, you probably aren't making art. Think sketches and studies and not products imo. That's the path to lasting greatness in gamedev.

If you're trying to sell it, it's a product.

An MVP of a painting is a sketch. An MVP of a film is a smaller film with the less important parts of the plot stripped, made with a phone camera and paper decorations in the backyard.

> If you're trying to sell it, it's a product.

That's kind of my point. Not that no art can be made to be sold. But art made with sales as a primary success criteria is only a subset of art-space. And a lot of the great art out there (video games included) did not originate from that subset.

I suppose for a film it's something like a script or a storyboard.

For a painting, I'm not sure because I'm not an artist, but is the investment large?

Early access? Some of the games released this way are very rough, but have at least a level or two worth of gameplay.

The core-loop. For example:

- plant seed

- harvest seed

- use income to buy better seeds

rinse repeat