Pre-production: A Road through a Discovery Phase

Fixes and suggestions for the not-so-talked-about pre-production stage of mobile game development. In the pre-production stage, we take you through concept ideation or matching intuition with industry research and define a game design document detailing what sort of experience your future players can expect as part of a team formation by identifying who will be working together. Knowing the tech requirements also aids in building up such documents along with an estimation on how much this might cost in terms of the budget which helps sharpen conscience into focus where it’s needed to ensure developers stick to given deadlines whenever possible – leading us down well-laid paths that were forged beforehand too!

The development of mobile games is a spine-tingling and sophisticated plan that you have to execute with extreme precision. Being the first stage of any video game, pre-production forms one of its most important parts to set it up for success. Pre-production Even skilled and knowledgeable developers must undertake a thorough pre-production phase in order to run their projects without malfunction.

You lay out the vision for your game & chart the foundation for everything else that will be developed later which means things like configuring project scope, market research, game design documents and so on.

MORE THAN JUST AN IDEA

You have your million-dollar idea… Now what?

Before you start this journey, there are some very crucial questions that need to be answered…

1. Who is your target audience?
2. What are the most popular mobile games in the market?
3. Which Ones Mobile Gamers Prefer?
4. What things will define this game as a whole?
5. Who is your competition and if they do something right, what are you going to offer that it differs from theirs?

Market Research is the part of pre-production that is very important for a successful game launch. It also involves studying the target market and competitors to identify a game design that can attract players while at the same time choosing an adaptation model.

Scott Rogers — Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design “Gamers can feel when developers are passionate about their games. They can smell it like a dog smells fear. Don’t be afraid to hold onto your unique vision: just be aware that it may not turn out exactly how you envisioned.”

It is a combination of Flexibility and Tenacity that takes you to the road towards your goals. Understanding the latest trends will allow you to build a game that is most likely relevant for your target group and has some chance of gaining success. You have your million-dollar idea and with a plan of action, you can make it happen.

Discovery Phase Key Components

The discovery phase (or Blueprint Stage) just works with a few key components. Let’s take a closer look at possible steps: 

• Concept Document: This element includes an overview of the game idea, basic concept, features, and target audience analysis. That is, it forms a high-level overall vision of the game before creating a more detailed Game Design Document (GDD).
• Mind Map: This stage is aimed at designing the general structure and concept of the game, taking into account all ideas and possible options.
• Reference Board: There is an active collection of images, colors, and materials gathered to inspire and guide the visual style and direction of the project. This helps ensure that everyone involved shares a common vision.

These basic steps can be supplemented: 

• Game Design Document (GDD): is a detailed guide that explains the game concept, gameplay mechanics, story, characters, levels, and monetization approach. It is the plan and reference point for all further development.
• Mood Board: a set of images, colors, textures, and design elements that visually represent the overall style, atmosphere, and feel of a game.
• Concept Art: consists of sketches that depict characters, UI screens, and other key elements of the game.

Or even more: 

• All elements: You’ll receive a GDD, Mind Map, Mood Board, and Concept Art.
• Unity Prototype: demonstration of basic game mechanisms without complex calculations and gameplay. But it gives an understanding or a correct vision of the project that needs to be corrected or supplemented.

MAKE A PLAN: THE GDD

With that out of the way and assured your idea is not only possible but a good fit for today’s market, get started on putting together a game design document (GDD) – explaining what it does as well as every step needed to execute your vision. It should be detailed enough that someone can read over it and get an idea of what the game is trying to do, even if they have never heard anything about their given subject.

The plan should include:

1. Centered idea and vision of the game.
2. In-Depth Descriptions of Game Mechanics
3. Character and level designs
4. Technical specifications
5. Art style and assets
6. Sound and music elements
7. Monetization strategies
8. Timeline and Milestones of Project

A well-executed GDD makes the execution far more precise and ensures a better end-state product. Because mobile games are usually made with small resources and time there needs to be no confusion across the team, everyone must have clear knowledge of what they need to do. First and foremost, GDD helps in keeping everyone ordered with the same intentions. Once the plan is ready, you can now assemble those pieces to create a game that you actually play.

THE MOBILE GAME EFFICIENCY TEAM

You have prepared and planned.  The next thing to do is to gather a team. These numbers can range from 2 to hundreds of people, all depending on the type and scale of your design. At this point, to make a full-cycle game for mobile devices, the team will have: Project Manager Software Engineer Designer Art Director UI/UX (almost always).

Project Manager: The project manager is responsible for handling the whole project development. These include overseeing the development team, setting objectives and timetables, monitoring progress along with performance ensuring that each project is up to scratch; liaising between departments as well as customer representatives, etc. They must also make sure that the development process is as streamlined and consistent while maintaining delivery on time within budget.

Software Engineer: Alternatively, a solution architect or Software Developer depending on the size of an organization and scope. So, this guy is often asked to pick the tech architecture of a game with his team. Such activity involves capacity planning of the underlying infrastructure base, architecting systems design for all system components (software architecture, hardware architecture, or networking), database design, user interface designs, and development environment designing.

Game designer: Сreates the game design document, which tries to map out what is in a game. They will collaborate with the development team to make sure that game mechanics, levels, and whatnot are mechanically sound before entering production. In addition to offering their two cents, they will also suggest changes and recommendations so that the game is exciting and enjoyable for its prospective users.

An Art Director: The art director should design everything that is seen. E.g. concept art, animations, and 3D models. At this stage, they help identify the art style according to the client’s vision, product requirements, and technical limitations. They will also be responsible for overseeing the creation of art assets, developing a style guide, and making sure that the game looks and feels cohesive.

UI/UX Designers: UI/UX Designers, are designers of user interfaces and experiences which are intuitive, functional as well as appealing. This is the time when they will form wireframes, prototypes, and visuals to hint at how a game would look as well as its overall UI/UX. They will also provide feedback and recommendations to the development team so that optimal user experience can be maintained for their target audiences.

Team members must share in the passion of the project, working symbiotically along a management to problem-solve together. It might be necessary to also have input from other types of professionals – e.g. a sound dude, maybe some marketing or someone who knows about the analytics side too.

LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY

You probably want to get something back out of this unless you are some one-man operation with a side hobby. So how DO you make money with mobile games?

Numerous monetization mechanisms exist in video games, it is a rapidly evolving space and developers are constantly finding new ways to earn money from their hard work. There are a few popular ways you can make money by following your fashion taste.

• In-app purchases: IAPs are accessible for users within the game, such as buying virtual items or rewards (Power-ups, extra levels of play)
• In-App Ads: this can mean banners or rewards for players to watch video ads.
• Subscription models: this means players would need to pay a continuing fee in order to be allowed access to the full version of the game for an unlimited period.
• Free to play: users can download and play enter the game for free, but pay real money if they want other items in-game. 
• Paid games (Pay-once): there is a one-time payment from which you will have access until forever at that point in time.

In the end, it comes down to what your game is who you intend to target, etc. This leads quite a few developers to go for a mixed model, incorporating different strategies within one title. When it comes to monetizing a game, user experience and retention should be the first things developers consider when deciding how they will make money; that is never meant to come before making great games.

Budget Breakdown

For budgeting concerns, there are never any hard and fast rules to developing a mobile game. The scale phase has a dynamic pricing structure based on the scope of your game, ranging from very small (a few thousand dollars) to multi-million dollar titles.

Once you have decided on the scope and requirements for your game, then we can actually start working out a budget. First, you split the Development process into pieces: Art, Programming, Sounds( Design ), and Level stringWithFormat. The prices for highway: This is a ballpark range to get started with solution costs …(one time plus any continuing licensing, hardware, and storage costs as applicable.

You also need to take into consideration the platforms you are developing for, the tech stack required and costs such as advertising or marketing when creating your budget.

And last, but not least incorporate a buffer for potential unanticipated expenses. Since you just never know what will happen during the development process, it is important to have a backup.

Also, keep in mind virtual reality is the future and even if it may seem expensive at first glance should be viewed as a long-term investment for mobile game development. If this isn’t the case you will need to do a lot of research and planning spending until your budget is realistic for your project.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TECH STACK

The technology you use will depend on your needs and what kind of game, so take your time to research and learn the options available in terms of tech stack for games or software development companies to ensure that these are indeed the best technologies. You need a technology stack with great performance, scalability, lower cost, and ease of development. This means you don’t want your game to be potentially hugely successful here but unsupported resulting in a sub-optimal user experience.

Step into step, try your hand at writing a mobile game and you should decide which platform on the elements established in the mobile platform. For iOS, you have to go through Apple’s tech like Objective-C or Swift. You must work with Google’s technologies such as Java or Kotlin if you write for Android. While it is possible to take a game and change some of the rules in order to hog the platform later, in the long run, you are saving time (and by all considerations money) by developing cross-platform principles from square one.

Now, you will have to pick an engine for your project. Unity, Unreal Engine, and Cocos2D are some of the popular ones as well as HTML5. Each comes with its own pros and cons.

The first one of those is Unity which is easy to pick up, offers unmatched performance, and can be scaled as well as any. It has a low cost of entry and monthly pricing.

Unreal Engine. This option has gathered a wide range of ground because Unreal Engine is extremely robust and configurable. After your revenue exceeds U$1MM, Unreal takes 5% percent of it.

Advantages of Cocos2D. More suitable for developing 2-dimensional mobile games Learn and use Relatively cheaper.

Web-based development is the way to go if it’s HTML5 with a mix of your choice, as per how you have built it. It is a highly customizable out-from-the-box drop-in type product that speaks on hand ease of use.

The right tech stack is overwhelming to select. But if you dive into researching each technology, learning about its strengths and limitations with practical use in mind; it can help inform your decision so that whatever tech stack you decide to code on is optimal for getting a game out the door as well as laying down adaptability steps towards support and future versions.

Should I Pay for Cloud Services?

Developing mobile games can be perfect with cloud services for developers. A great majority of game developers are using a cloud server, and if you have one as well then there is no doubt that you can easily make use of powerful tools that help save time/tools/data to successful outcomes with potentially very large failure rates.

Cloud services offer a multitude of benefits for mobile game development. Some of the most notable follow:

• Cost savings: You only pay for how much cloud service you consume, which can help save money on infrastructure costs. You do not need to buy costly hardware like consoles or software in order to run your game. Alternatively, you can simply rent out whatever computing capacity is necessary for far cheaper.
• Scale: The cloud services can scale as your game scales. This allows you to easily ramp up or down the amount of computing and storage that is consumed for your application.
• Scalability: With cloud service, you will get the flexibility to deploy your game across platforms. That means that you can use it on any platform like iOS, Android or etc.
• Security: These secure environments within the cloud services will host your game data. It means no need to worry about data breaches or security concerns.

In this article, we will discuss the top cloud providers for mobile game development that have storage options as well as machine learning and analytics solutions.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): The behemoth of the 3 key cloud hyperscalers is AWS. AWS GameTech is an AWS team that partners with the most innovative gaming companies across every segment of the industry including Mobile, PC, Console, AR/VR, and more. AWS is a sophisticated and extensive platform providing many cloud services around computing, database, application service, deployment & management along with developer tools.
• Microsoft Azure — the second largest hyperscale and one that carries quite a bit of “ecosystem” value to Microsoft Office 365 customers. Azure also has deep gaming roots from Xbox and all of MSFT’s gaming studios. The company has a dedicated team at Azure that works with gaming as well. For game developers looking to consume cutting-edge technologies, Azure can be a very sensible choice. Azure furthermore offers integration with current systems and more flexible pricing options.
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Google has the most powerful cloud platform to process data security and performance.
• IBM Cloud: After all IBM is a major enterprise and has a cloud platform that provides cognitive services, analytics, and integration with another product in an easy-to-use way.
• Oracle Cloud: Oracle Cloud provides a full suite of cloud services from infrastructure to platform as well applications can scale and work together efficiently with Oracle functioning applications.

Developers are mostly impressed with cloud services. You can save money with them using infrastructure, scale up or down based on the size of your game, and deploy to multiple platforms. In addition, they offer safe data custody.

To know more you can turn to Innovecs Cloud professionals when selecting a cloud provider in your mobile game development, who will be glad to study terms of services together with provided capabilities or features helpful for making the gaming process fun and entertaining.

CREATING AN AESTHETIC

Probably the most fun thing in pre-production is defining the visual and artistic features of your game. The art style is really how players will emotionally resonate with the game and want to play it. An art style is a visual signature, and that helps differentiate it from the hordes of mobile games people can choose to play.

Concept art is the start of the art-style definition phase. At this stage, designers create sketches paintings, or 3D models that clearly define the look and feel of a game concept. Art gives an early visual idea of how the game will look and acts as a foundation for all design decisions being made during development.

Once the concept art is done, we move on to UI/UX designs. In this phase, the art team will collaborate with design and begin developing menus/buttons/interactive elements. Game assets such as icons, logos, and backgrounds will also be drawn up by the art team.

Aesthetics is the last thing you define in the art-style definition phase of a game. An example is deciding colors, fonts, and materials going to be used across the game. Art – this will be for character and environment assets as well. The particular step is essential as it makes positive that the visuals of the game itself are consistent, and therefore creates a cohesive experience for our players.

Requirements for Graphics

Now, let me welcome you travelers to the colorful world of graphics for pre-production (mobile game development) concepts.

• Resolution: Graphics should be optimized for different device resolutions (from low-end phones to high-end tablets).
• Graphics size: Graphics need to be small for users to be able to play position without any lag.
• Game graphics: Should be optimized for mobile devices, i.e. using textures with a low memory footprint
• Polygon budget: A game restricts the number of three-dimensional shapes it uses by how powerful a system is running to play that game.
• Face style: graphics must look good and not far aside from the art path.

Sticking to these requirements will allow you to produce excellent, unforgettable graphics that fit right in with the core functionalities of your strategy game.

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Conclusion

Congratulations on surviving the pre-production phase. As we have said earlier, this crucial part of the development process gives us a way to pave for what is waiting in front, establishing how the game will run and play out when polished.

This should be carried out with the mentality that, at this point in time you have on paper a complete game design document core team, and market analysis all done. In addition, you will agree on a method of monetization, the platform and tech stack to be used, terms about budgeting/scheduling, as well as clarify the visual style and artistic bends for the game.

Pre-production can appear long, but it is better to take the time now and make your game stand out in an already competitive mobile market than trying to get players interested after shipping quickly built shovelware (An all-encompassing design with nothing unique about itself) Until then — here awaits pre-prod!