How To Upgrade Your Prototyping Gear

One of Rescue's greatest strengths is how eye-catching it is on a table. In March of last year, we brought Rescue to UnPub and were lucky enough to have a steady stream of folks eager to play. Getting there required working through dozens of butt-ugly prototypes first.

Starting Point: Thrifted Inkjet and Copy Paper

The very first versions were printed on a thrifted Canon inkjet printer that cost $10 at the thrift store. It burned through ink cartridges and lasted about two months before dying completely, but it served its purpose. We paired it with standard copy paper because we needed to iterate fast and cheaply. These early cards were strictly functional—just enough to test whether organizing dogs into packs felt good and whether the core mechanics had any meat to them.

The problem became obvious quickly: copy paper was too thin to shuffle or handle comfortably, and inkjet cartridges were expensive. Cards would fold, stick together, and generally feel terrible in hand. Even though we weren't trying to impress anyone yet, the flimsiness was getting in the way of actually playing the game.

📃First Upgrade: Cardstock

The first real upgrade was starting to use #110 cardstock, which made an immediate difference. Even with sleeves, our copy paper versions felt delicate, but these new cards had heft. They didn't fold in half when you picked them up. Suddenly, playtests felt less like fighting with materials and more like actually testing a game. The best part of this upgrade to our prototypes was the minimal cost for such a big change in feel.

✂️Second Upgrade: Paper Cutter

Moving from scissors to a paper cutter was a major quality-of-life improvement. We were making constant balance adjustments (tweaking dog abilities, rewriting Pack Leader text, testing different point values), and every change meant printing and cutting new cards. With scissors, this took forever and looked sloppy. You'd spend twenty minutes hunched over trying to keep edges straight, and half the time the cards still came out uneven.

The paper cutter cut (😉) that time in half; print a sheet, line it up, and slice (several if you’re daring). Having consistent card sizes meant faster sleeving and less visual variance on the table.

🖨️Third Upgrade: Laser Printer

Once the rules stabilized, we entered a new phase: fine-tuning point values and abilities. This meant printing constantly as we tested small adjustments. We were also showing the game to more people and started going to public playtesting events. The inkjet couldn't keep up with the volume or quality we needed, and the cost of constantly refilling the ink cartridges made it more cost-effective, long-term, to invest in a more efficient printer.

A laser printer solved both problems, we opted for a Brother printer because we knew the toner was locally available and it landed in the price range we were willing to spend. Cleaner text, no smearing, better color consistency, and the speed to print new versions multiple times a week provided an immediate return. Combined with cardstock and the paper cutter, we finally had prototypes that looked intentional and invited people to take the game seriously.

When to Upgrade (and When to Stay Scrappy)

Here's the method that helped us decide when to invest in better tools: how often are you playtesting, how big is your deck, and how frequently does your text change?

For us, each upgrade happened when the current setup started slowing us down or making playtests worse. Cardstock, when copy paper became unplayable. Paper cutter when cutting by hand ate too much time. A laser printer was needed for both volume and quality for public events.

Looking back, a paper cutter is such a low-cost investment (you can get away with the $12 ones) with a major quality return, that there’s no reason not to invest in one immediately. If you're testing a hundred-card deck and tweaking abilities constantly, a paper cutter will save you hours of frustration.

If you're prototyping your own game, start with the basics: pen, paper, and whatever printer you can access (Staples or your local library helps in a pinch!).

I'd love to hear what tools you're using for your prototypes. What upgrade surprised you with the impact? What are you still doing the hard way that you probably shouldn't be?

If you're going to be at UnPub, check out our playtest times and come find us. We'd love to hear what you think.

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