Mobile Game Development Process

With the rapid increase of smartphones, the mobile gaming platform is becoming popular day by day. Global market research says the growth of mobile game development in last year has witnessed $86.1 billion that indicates mobile gaming industry is evolving into the mainstream. This switch has taken place since last 10 years. 

On the other hand, study says a huge number of students are turning their love of video game into a career choice. The agile methodology of developing mobile games becomes very common. As developing games have much more prominences than developing applications, there are many facts which are uniquely challenging. 

We have illustrated here the process of mobile game development step by step. 

1.    Concept
The origin of all kind of games is being enrooted from an idea or a concept. Whether it is an original game or a series, there should be a concept behind it. For example, the game concept could be to fight against zombies with some supernatural power while traveling around a new place to reach the destination finding some mysterious unknown facts. It can also be about a 3D racing game of bikes or cars on the roads. 

In short, it is a brief documentation of the game overview which contains four basic elements: game mechanics, setting, technology, and interaction. Mechanics describes the rule set of the game by explaining the steps to reach the goal. In setting, two important parts are the story and aesthetic of the game. While story explains about the game, aesthetic tells the look of the game. Technology defines the targeted devices for a particular game. Interaction takes care of the part how the user will interact with the game. 

2.    Pre-production
After concept, the step which needs to be taken is pre-production. Pre-production process typically includes producers, designers, writers, artists and programmers. This pre-production team follows methods like writing the storyline, developing the storyboard, creating the designs, detailing gameplay mechanics, etc. In this process, the game concept will be interpreted with programming language and platforms. 

Kanode and Haddad state, “Great pre-production reduces the need to find that elusive element of ‘fun’ during the production stage, and allows the team to focus on implementing the game, rather than experimenting with it”.

To lay down the foundation of the game, the lead game designer draws the outline of the game concept with the help of programmers and artists. Thus, they develop a powerful graphics. Designers compile the mechanics and storyline together to build the prototype of the game with the help of programmers. After this, programmers start working on the technological framework. After completing the prototype, pre-production process transfers it to the production process. 

3.    Production
In production process, the designers, artists, and programmers use the design of the prototype to build the game. As pre-production process serves the blueprint of the game, in the production process the development process enters into a bigger phase with a large number of producers, designers, artists and programmers. Concept artists create the models, textures, and animation of objects, environments, and characters of different levels. Then, programmers decide the game engine based on games’ graphics systems or physics and write the code on game’s rules. 

David Sirlin, the Lead Designer of Sirlin Games, explains, “The goal is to add more dimensions to the game that is to create more content that is better looking within a design that is more refined.”

4.    Post-production
The last and final stage of the game development is the post-production. This process focuses on the testing. The alpha version of the game is sent to the testing team for checking the errors or bugs. Quality assurance team checks the game by playing it, and if they find any bugs, the games are rechecked by programmers for the necessary changes. Once all the bugs are being fixed, or the standards are being determined, the game is ready to be launched in the market.