Has it ever happened to you: you look at passengers on public transport who are busting balls in their phones or sticking in “2048”, and you think: “Simple game! I want to do the same”? Let’s try to figure out how to create a popular game for smartphones. What do you need to know to develop games, what errors to avoid and what to pay attention to?
Learn the basics
To understand how to develop the concept of the game, how to build the gameplay and make it so that the user was pleasant to play, it is necessary to get acquainted with game-design. The books will help to understand the principles of video games creation. In terms of programming, you need to be able to write native code for the platform under which the game is developed. It will be necessary to have such knowledge:
- Understand the life cycle of the application for iOS/Android inside the operating system – what happens at the start and the phone call, what resources and when loaded into the memory.
- Program on Swift/Objective-C for iOS and on Java for Android.
- Understand the sound formats and graphics (textures) for iOS/Android.
- Have experience programming in C/C++ for iOS/Android on OpenGL.
- Understand the cycle of the game from creation to appearance in the Store.
- It makes sense to look at the game’s cross-platform solutions.
Learn Unity and the C# programming language is the standard in the industry. By working on this engine, you will develop rapidly. For Unity, there is Asset Store, a store of ready-made solutions from developers. It will save you a lot of time and provide technologies that were previously unavailable to small studios and novice programmers. Tutorials, video lessons and online schools will help you learn. All this is relevant even if you want to create a simple 2d character concept art.
It is very difficult to make a popular game, especially for one person. You will need programming skills, knowledge of game-design, 3d-modelling, animation, graphic design. Game development is the intersection of technology, art and business. Competence in psychology will also be useful. Therefore, it is better to put together a team. Modern games for smartphones, present on the market, are the result of well-coordinated teams, not one person. Usually they are programmers, game-designers, artists, musicians, testers, market analysts, advertising and promotion specialists, financiers. Now it is almost impossible to realize a popular game by yourself.
Think about who this game will be for
You need to know your gamer at every stage of game development and support. Who is he? What does he like? How old is he? From what country? It is especially important to decide on the geography. “Asia, Europe, USA – everywhere there are nuances in the implementation of gameplay, graphics and other aspects. A simple example: in Asian countries, all heroes must have big eyes.
The gameplay first of all
First, develop core gameplay – the basis of the game: think of what the player will do, as well as depending on what the game world will respond to it. It should drag on. Go on to the rest only when the core gameplay is 100% ready. Defer to the final stage of the project bug fixes, graphics improvements, translations and sounds. You will have to redo the game many times, and part of the work done in time will be in vain.
The main criterion of cool gameplay is that it makes you return to the game. The game must have depth, so that the player remains in it as long as possible. In the end, the success of games is based on the percentage of players returning after time. The best solution is to hire a game development outsourcing company. This way you will be sure that you will get a great variant of the game, which can become popular.