Game Development 101
Who doesn’t play games for hours on their mobiles or PCs or consoles in this era of technology? Well, Gaming industry is an ever expanding $135 billion industry and now is the best time to hone up your skills! Today, I’ll go through the stages of game development.
Ever wondered how these amazing games such as Fortnite, FIFA, GTA, Call of duty etc. are made? Well, a lot of work goes into these masterpieces. A huge team of developers consisting of coders, animators, designers, marketeers etc. work for long periods of times creating them so that everyone can enjoy them.
Like almost any product, a game also goes through various stages of production, let’s see them one at a time:
- Ideation
Perhaps the most important stage in the game life cycle is coming up an idea for it(I mean, if you don’t have an idea, what are you even making xD). What ideation really means is to come up with a new concept for a game that a general or specific audience can enjoy. Basically any game was initially just a piece of idea in someone’s brain. According to Tim Sweeny, Fortnite was supposed to be a game built on the idea that a world where you explore, you scavenge, you build and ultimately you survive, and now it is one of the most successful games in the industry.
2. Creating a Team
Now that you have a ground breaking idea(at least according to you), now you need someone to work on it. Are you gonna do it alone? Well unless you are a robot that can code, animate, design, market and produce, the answer to that question is a hard no.
You’re gonna want a team of people who are like minded, have a passion for gaming and most importantly have the required skills. Look for people with a different set of skills to distribute work as much as possible so that it is easier to collaborate. And with unity(a game engine most commonly used to develop games), collaboration is as easy as it gets.
3. Conceptualization
This phase is way different from the ideation phase in a lot of ways. Basically in this stage, the concept art and the story of the game is to be created. So artists, writers, developers all work together to create a basic outline of what the game would be like.
Now we are coming to the actual game development process. Put on your seat belts and hold on to your seats, because it is going to be one hell of a ride!(too lame? Thought so :P)
4. Design
Now to implement the concept created in the last stage, the next step is to work on the assets that the game would use. What are assets? Well, basically anything you use in your game is an asset. So for example, you are making a car racing game, the cars, the tracks, the flags etc, all are assets in the game. Assets are created using a 3D modelling software such as blender if your game is a 3D one or Photoshop for 2D assets. You can also download pre-made assets available online, but it is recommended you design your own(preventing copyright issues).
5. Programming
Yeah it is finally here! Perhaps what will make or break your game all depends on this one stage. Programming is the art of writing weird gibberish that somehow makes things work. In all seriousness, it is the science of writing code which would make your game run the way you desire.
In game development, the code written is usually called a script and can be written in a variety of languages. I personally prefer C# to write my scripts, however you can use any language of your liking, such as C++, JavaScript or Python.
The basic procedure of creating a script is to first create an algorithm for the game, then write the code, compile it, check for bugs and keep on testing till perfected. After the script is finished, you need to attach the script to the asset(oh funny thing, you have to make a different script for almost every asset your game has, so I guess that would make you realize why you need a team), make changes in your game engine and then test your game.
6. Testing
Another really important stage is the testing stage, being the final component that analyses whether your game is ready for launch or not. Such services gives the development process a critical eye to focus on constant searches like inconsistencies, errors, coherence and completeness, etc. So you hire people to play your game(dream job, am i right?) and then they analyse how it could be better.
Thus, testing helps you in error ratification and bug detection which then determines the deployment status of your game. That’s right guys, your game is now ready to launch(ok maybe now is when I should have asked you to fasten your seat belts, such a lost opportunity :/).
7. Launching and Marketing
So, you are done with your game. Nice. What do you intend to do with it now? Assuming you built the game so that others can play, this stage is what comes next. First you need to determine what platforms you want to launch the game to, then choose a date for your launch. But that is not enough, you need to create buzz about the game. That is when marketing comes to play.
Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. To make your game successful, you need to pay a lot of attention to this aspect, because good marketing would help you reach the success you want to, and more. Now I personally am not a marketing guy, and have no idea what is good or bad, so maybe hiring a marketing agency is a good idea, but again no idea.
8. Maintenance
So you launched your game, marketed it and it is a success!! So now you are thinking, the work is done, right? Oh boy, you couldn’t be more wrong.If I have learnt one thing observing a lot of games, developers spend a lot of time in maintaining the game. Which means, you have to keep adding new stuff to keep the players interested and not break previous features( a lot of companies struggle with this). And no matter how interesting your game is, people get bored, really quick.
Taking Pokemon Go as an example here, people really loved it initially, played it for a week and then got bored. Niantic realised they need to add new stuff to keep players interested and now the game is worth $4 billion.
In the end, I would say that your game, is your baby(just less annoying but equally needy). And as the baby grows, it requires work and care. But once it becomes successful, there is going to be no bounds to your happiness, trust me, and it is going to be worth it. The journey is going to be annoying, there would be days where you would want to bang your head on the wall because you are going nowhere with the game, but it will happen.
Happy Gaming! Any and all feedback is appreciated :D
