Paper prototypes are a great tool, but there are some video game mechanics that simply need to run on a computer in order to be tried out. Visual programming languages can be great for creating a quick digital prototype of a twitch mechanic (or whatever else doesn’t work well in paper).

Here are a few of the more popular visual languages for games (feel free to recommend others in the comments):

• Blueprints (Unreal)
• Construct 2
• GameSalad
• Scratch
• Stencyl