What I Learned Designing My First iOS Game

Anyone with a few or more years of game development experience will tell you that making games requires an always learning mindset. Whether it’s your first game or tenth, there’s always something new to discover about making games that players will be attracted to, enjoy, and want to tell others about

But like any career, the first time you dive into game development is usually when you learn some big lessons, realize what works and what doesn’t, and more. The following are three things I recall learning while working on a iOS card/strategy game called Stack & Deploy as a college senior at UC Santa Cruz. (No longer in app store)

1. Avoid Being Too Ambitious

I remember one of the guys on the Stack & Deploy team talking about his apartment mate, who wasn’t a game design student, suggesting that we make something along the lines of “Halo, but better”. The idea of making something on the scale of Halo with 8 or 9 people is of course absurd to anyone who knows a thing or two about game development. Like the other student game projects, we were confident that our initial idea for Stack & Deploy could be done in less than a year.

Except it was slightly too ambitious. One of the biggest cuts I recall making was going down from five unique playable races to three, which was something Michael Mateas, our game design professor, prophesied from the get-go. While we did end up having most of the features we set as goals in the beginning, including a deck builder and online multiplayer, a very important lesson was learned. Unfortunately a few of the other student teams learned a much harder way when their games ended up being nowhere near their initial vision.

2. Friends Make Better Games Than Co-Workers

One of the guys on the Stack & Deploy team, a close friend since our freshman year, recently moved to Southern California to work at a major Santa Monica game studio. Not having seen each other in years, I made a two hour drive just to play video and board games with him and his friends, which almost entirely consisted of developers from that same company. I was impressed to see developers from an award-winning game studio want to spend time together outside of the office.

Of course, this is exactly how it was while working on Stack & Deploy and why I feel our project did better than the rest. When we weren’t working on the game, we were playing games of all kinds together and hanging out. While it is unrealistic to assume that you’re going to become super good buddies with everyone you ever work with in the gaming industry, remember that making games is often a highly collaborative effort that requires plenty of teamwork and communication. I feel there is a lot more potential in a team of developers who see each other as more than just co-workers.

3. Getting A Taste Of Every Area Is A Good Thing

Most studios expect their designers to have some familiarity with most aspects of game development, including art, programming, story, level design, music, etc. Such a designer is better able to make necessary gameplay tweaks and decisions that will affect how other team members do their job. Otherwise, the designer may find themselves frustrating other teammates by asking them to do the impossible based on a small, possibly unneeded change.

I was fortunate enough to learn this during my first year while working on Stack & Deploy by getting involved in many roles. While my main position was writer and art director, I also helped provide music, sound effects, and pixel art. Like everyone else, I also helped test the game and was involved in meeting where we threw around design ideas and concerns.

This has helped me as an independent writer/narrative designer because I am more careful about creating content that will demand too much from an artist or programmer. I am also better at coming up with flexible stories, quests, and other content that won’t fall apart if someone decides that what I am asking for is too much or has to be changed.