appropriate for prototyping

[ItsDan]

Curious if anyone is using, or know of BGA's platform being used for prototyping purposes. I'm working on a board game and am at the stage where I'd like to begin prototyping. I can do so on physical paper obviously but my own play group is small compared to the people who'd help if we could play online.

This would therefore be a game quite a long time away from being published, not sure if that's something BGA allows or if they only want published games they can add to their games list.

[ddyer]

Unless there is no way to represent your game with cardboard and counters, that is the appropriate way to prototype a board game. It will be lots faster and easier.
There could be minor exceptions - for example if you were only investigating tweaking a rule, and had access to a complete implementation you could modify.
Even if you were forced to use a computer to develop a game that might be implemented on BGA eventually, I'd start with a generic visual-only engine like vassal.
..and of course, if you're a programmer and just want to write some code, go ahead - it doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you if it's fun.