See Pokemon GO deconstructed at GDC's Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit

With the 2016 Game Developers Conference right around the corner, organizers would like to highlight some of the great talks taking place at the conference's Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit to ensure you don't miss out on some great mobile game development insights.

If you're at all interested in the art and business of making successful mobile games, these talks are worth making time for because they'll help shed some light on how contemporary game designers are adapting and applying their skills to the rapidly-shifting mobile landscape.

Niantic's upcoming augmented-reality Pokemon mobile game Pokemon GO is a fine example, and you can learn how it's being developed from Niantic chief John Hanke in his Summit session "Catch 'Em All: Pokemon GO and Real World Gaming."

It's a neat talk, and Hanke aims to offer attendees an in-depth look at how players are interacting and exploring the world with one another through Pokemon GO, the collaborative approach to design and development for the game, and what Niantic (which also developed Ingress) sees as the next evolution of augmented reality and real-world mobile gameplay experiences.

Plus, Prettygreat cofounder Luke Muscat (known for designing games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride while at Halfbrick) will showcase how he and the Prettygreat team designed and fine-tuned the intuitive touch controls of the studio's debut game Land Sliders.

Sit in on his talk, "Design in Detail: Controlling Land Sliders," if you'd like detailed insight and concrete examples of how to optimize your touch controls for your players, as well as advice on how to resolve divergent feedback from your playtesters.

Also, in his "Soft Launch Best Practices: How, Why and Where to Soft-launch Your Mobile Game" talk at GDC 2016, Mobilize vice president Oliver Kern will walk you through the process of testing your mobile game in a suitable test market, and offer key factors to consider when choosing which test market is right for you. 

Check it out, because Kern intends to offer some advice on how to implement lessons learned from that test launch into your final product, so that you can attract (and retain) the players who will most enjoy it.

And of course, more great sessions will be announced for GDC 2016 in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

GDC 2016 itself will take place March 14-18th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2016, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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