Almost every experienced gamer stuck up with an excellent idea to develop the game. Sometimes famous companies create games and don’t achieve their goals because of misunderstanding the most important aspects of a successful project. Whether you are a game lover and haven’t worked in the game development industry for a long time, you can find the best solution that will be appreciated by millions of people.
The reason for such a fact is good awareness and understanding of the basics of successful game business. After all, if people need your project, it will not require advertising, it will take off. We have collected the best tips from the minds of the world’s popular experts. Today’s article is going to be useful for many rookie game developers.
Why Are Mobile Games So Profitable?
The mobile game industry is quickly developing now. New technologies allow to diversify people’s game experience and bring them new opportunities. According to statistics, more than 3 billion people play video games and half of them choose only mobile applications. It is quite a high number and this is why mobile games are so popular. People always need something new and unique, so they are waiting for your ideas to become reality.
People play games for various reasons, such as to pass the time quickly, enjoy, or distract from everyday life. Having drawn up a good game concept that will bring a benefit to the players and have come up with all the game development details in advance, you gain the opportunity to make your project profitable and successful. And you will see that among such a large number of players, there is your audience.
12 Steps to Develop Perfect Mobile Game
To make your life easier, we have collected a list of step-by-step instructions about the process of developing your first mobile game. The most important thing we can tell you is that creating a mobile app is generally based on analyzing the target audience. Programming and subsequent development of the game depend only on your initial decisions. So, take a look at the list of mobile game development steps below!
- Come up with a great game idea
- Drawn up a unique game concept
- Select a mobile game platform
- Choose a game engine
- Development of a game design document
- Game structure design
- Come up with a plan for wireframe
- Write game codes
- Go through testing
- Choose the monetization system
- Launch a new mobile app
- Post-release support and maintenance.
It may seem easy, but, in fact, each stage of mobile game development has specific features and difficulties. Let’s analyze in detail each stage of mobile app development!
Step 1: Coming up with a great game idea
As you may have already known, the life of every successful project begins with a great idea. It is the foundation of your game project. Your game needs to be useful for people and bring some benefit. Create what people haven’t seen before. Understand what is missing in the modern game market and try to think like a potential player. You can spend months or even years creating the twisting game concept, but you should understand that it is the most important step of developing a mobile game.
Do thorough market research to understand what mobile games are popular and why people appreciate them. The most popular reason why a game is at the top of popularity is that it may have an interesting story with dialogues, involve people to play more, and find out what will happen at the end. Try to take into account all the features of popular games and do your analysis.
Step 2: Drawn up a unique game concept
The game concept is a set of basic mechanics and models for the approval of the project, after approval this concept becomes the basis of the game. The concept should include information about the game, the reasons for creating such a game, and an analysis of the market situation. You need to come up with an achievable plan of game development, including various systematized ideas and suggestions, such as type of game mechanics, genre, game story and control, game platform, and many other factors. You should take into account the following questions if you want to draw up a great game concept:
- What is the main goal of the game?
- What will happen during the gameplay?
- What devices can run the game?
- What is the game mechanics?
Of course, it is not all questions you need to take into consideration. You should go through market research and make decisions based on your findings.
Step 3: Select a mobile game platform
It is quite difficult to choose the mobile platform for the game. There are 50% of people who use Android devices and 50% of people who use iOS software. In this case, you also can go through market research and learn how many people download the app with similar features to your game.
Of course, the best way is to develop a game for multiple platforms. Therefore, your application will be more popular and have more downloads. This also means an increase in your income. However, joining multiple platforms requires more investments and work. You should consider your budget possibilities.
Step 4: Choose a game engine
A good engine is a heart and brain that makes your game alive, allowing developers to bring their ideas to life so that players can interact with the worlds they represent. Game graphics and other important features depend on which engine you choose. For instance, visual asset processing such as shading, lighting, mapping, and depth-of-field requires less effort while developing a game with an engine.
Today’s newest technologies give people a wide range of possibilities for game development, as well as for choosing a game engine. You should choose the engine that will be beneficial for your project. Therefore, choosing a game engine is crucial and plays an important role in mobile game development.
Such game engines as CryEngine, Unity, Unreal Engine, Amazon Lumberyard, and many other platforms have different styles of game development, as well as capabilities. You should get to know the functions of each engine better to choose the most suitable one.
By the way, there are also various backend languages, for instance, Python, C++, C#, and others that you need to choose for your game development.
Step 5: Development of a game design document
The game design document should carry important information about the application and all the details of it. For instance, game mechanics, used technologies, a game story, characters, objects, and other features. You should describe your game as well as possible because it is a live document and you will get feedback.
By the way, all changes in the game need to be updated in a game design document later.
Step 6: Game structure design
It is not a surprise that game graphics and various visual effects affect people’s emotional states. The better the game environment, the better the player’s experience. Fortunately, the latest technologies allow developers to create unimaginable worlds with attractive characters and find the best solutions for game graphics.
By the way, you need to know that the game environment, story, and dialogues should adhere to a game concept and display its meaning. Decide if you want to develop a 2D or a 3D game. And remember that game visual design plays an important role in its sales and downloads.
Step 7: Come up with a plan for the wireframe
The wireframe is a visualization of your game concept at the structural level. It is very important to create a great plan for a wireframe because it gives you an understandable and clear image of the way the game functions and what the player feels. It will help you understand the gameplay, feel like a potential player, and improve the game with amendments.
Step 8: Write game codes
Choose a suitable backend language and consider all its features to ensure that you made the right choice. It is one of the most important stages of mobile game development because it is not easy to bring all ideas and sketches to life. The codes need to adhere to the game concept and make it alive.
When writing the real code, make sure every line matches your game design exactly. All the game rules, objects, actions need to be coded properly. Add comments to explain parts of the code. Use systems to track changes so you can fix mistakes.
Start with coding the most important game features first to make a basic working game. Get the main interactions and behaviors working before adding fancy graphics and extras. Test as you go to catch problems early. Refine and speed up the code as you build the full game. The final code should smoothly bring your mobile game idea to life.
The right code makes a game go from idea to reality. Take time to pick a good language, learn it deeply, plan carefully, and follow coding best practices. The result will be a polished game that works just as you imagined.
Step 9: Go through testing
Most often, the game is tested not by the developers, but by people who are not related to the creation of the game. This is done to assess the first impression of the game and to feel the emotions of a potential player. The testing shows you all the weaknesses of a developed game and what needs to be changed to improve the app performance.
Step 10: Choose the monetization system
Of course, the main goal of developing a game is to make a profit. There are several ways to earn money on a developed game. Take a look below!
- In-app monetization system. It is the most common way to earn. You may sell skins, clothes, and other items;
- Paid games. Of course, it is profitable, but you should consider the fact that most players do not pay attention to paid games and are not ready to give money for them, because there are other free apps;
- Advertisements. Almost every game has various ads, looking at which the player may be interested in the product. This can be useful not only for the customer, but also for you, because the earnings on advertising are now very large;
- Real money games. It is also a profitable option for a game monetization system. Players must buy in-app coins and you will get a certain percentage from them;
- Demo version of the game. You can make people interested in the game with a small part of its story. Just allow people to play the beginning of the game and then launch the paid version.
Step 11: Launch a new mobile app
As soon as you go through all the stages described above, you can consider that the development of your game is over. Now, you need to be interested in promoting your project and launching it on multiple platforms. However, it is not as easy as may seem.
First, your app will be checked by the review team and they will decide whether to launch your project on the platform. If they appreciate your efforts, the game will be available for download.
Step 12: Post-release support and maintenance
It would be a mistake to say that this is the end of the game development. Since the users of the game always demand something new, you will need to update the game and introduce new skins, clothes, and other items. In this way, players will be able to maintain interest for a long time. To improve the player experience, you will need to constantly fix bugs and answer player questions.
By the way, it is very important to set up competent Customer Support, which works 24/7, so that players do not have difficulties. If you are responsive and want to solve the problems of the players, they will come back to you again.
The Common Mistakes in Mobile Game Development
The mobile and gaming industries do not stand and bring new technologies. New opportunities are opening up for developers. Now everyone is striving to create a game on a mobile phone with trendy features. For some reason, many make mistakes during development. Here are the most common ones:
- Overloading a lot of functions. You should not include the entire range of features in your first release. It is better to release a mobile game in stages. Each version with 2-3 new features will give an idea of user experience and suggest the improvements that should be added;
- Loss of users’ interest. It is a common problem. This occurs at a time when developers forget about promoting the game, introducing new features, and fixing bugs. A complex interface or lack of feedback from support may be a serious reason for players’ decreased interest;
- Bad promotion. Even if you create a perfect and optimized product that millions of users could admire, no one will know about it if you don’t advertise it. Today there are many ways to promote. Maybe you should devise a creative promotion? Do not forget about this point, it plays a crucial role in the life of the developed game;
- Inexperienced team of developers. Before you start developing a game, it is very important to hire a team of well-reputed specialists. You can use freelance services, but keep in mind that this may not be very reliable and may not meet your expectations. We believe that it is best to use outsourcing services that have a prepared work plan in advance and are able to work more efficiently.
The Bottom Line
We hope today’s article was useful for you and helped you to learn more about all stages of mobile game development. In fact, every process of creating a game is very time-consuming and requires a lot of effort. You should follow our step-by-step instructions to develop a feature-rich, eye-catching, and entertaining mobile app.
