I am an artist, and visually i can imagine and nitpick artistry for a game in a get go.
I’m also used to accounting and math, so game balance is about as clear as its numbers.
I’d like to hire people to do prototype for me,
but i don’t know where to start.
I have UI designed and prepared, character designs.
So, what’s left are the blueprints and systems.
Do i prepare the assets first (animation, character models, etcs)
Or do i prototype the game first with existing mannequin?
What are the benefits and drawbacks from either approach?
Regards.
Building the assets will take a lot of time, and that time will be wasted if it turns out that your game idea doesn’t work the way you imagined it. The stuff inside one’s head is always sooooo much better than the real implementation of it, most of the time.
So, it’s typically a good idea to start with a prototype of the core gameplay using only existing assets as far as possible (i.e. the blue guy and simple building blocks from the starter content). Then playtest your prototype until you can determine whether or not it is sufficiently fun/engaging/interesting as a game. You don’t really need any fancy UI or framework for this, just the main game loop(s) is enough.
If you have the right mindset, you should be able to build a prototype using Blueprints only unless you have some really complex systems in mind. At that point, with a playable proof-of-concept (or video thereof) and a nice presentation of the designs you have planned, you could go ahead and try to recruit a programmer in the Job-Offerings subforum.