You can use prefabs and they do work. For the fun of it, try another prefab or two. If they still don't work, please tell what version and edition you have. Certain older versions have bugs that prevent things from working as I'm expecting.
"You level up the fastest and easiest if you do things at your own level and no higher or lower" - useful tip
My 2D game - release on Jun 13th; My tutorials
