Prototyping on BGA Studio

[SeikoTheWiz]

Hello !
I haven't found the information in the guidelines or the main slides I found so I'm asking here.

Is it ok to use BGA Studio to prototype a game?
I'm working with a friend on a card game and it would save us a lot of time if we could create a version here to test it.
Especially since we're not seeing each other much lately thanks to covid

Also in that case, how much private can this development be? Can I restrict my work to a few users at the beginning of the process?

Of course it would mean that if at some point we are ready to sell the game we would already have it here for everyone to enjoy

Thank you in advance for your answers.

[paramesis]

The guidelines recommend against this here: http://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/BGA_Ga ... ble_on_BGA

For prototyping, you would be better off with an unscripted sandbox environment, such as Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia. There you can adjust rules on the fly and have a much better time with access control. This is the most common method currently in use among virtual playtesting meetups.

I can say from personal experience that investing a huge amount of time into a fully implemented digital adaptation will prematurely solidify underdeveloped design decisions and make the design less receptive to valuable feedback.

[SeikoTheWiz]

Thanks a lot !

[SeikoTheWiz]

Some more information if it can be of help to anyone later:

After some tests and since I'm doing a card game I decided to go for Cockatrice for prototyping.
It's made to play mtg and some other card games so most of the capabilities I was looking for were already possible.
Since it's open-source I manage to add some code for the additional features I needed.
It's way easier to do a card set and even decks that I would have been with Tabletop simulator or Tabletopia and I simply added a cloudinary free account to host my card images.
If someone is interested to know more details, I can help in PM as it's not exactly the purpose of this forum