Though the programmer's main job is not to develop the game design, the programmers often

Professional game development usually begins with a game design, which itself has several possible origins. The occasional game starts development with no clear game design, but as a series of experimentations. The best selling computer game of all time, The Sims, was developed by the game designer,

Writing prototypes of gameplay ideas and features are an important activity that allows programmers and game designers to experiment with different algorithms and usability scenarios for a game. A great deal of prototyping may take place during pre-production before the design document is complete and may, in fact, help determine what features the design specifies. Prototyping may also take place during active development to test new ideas as the game emerges.