How can you design games for mobile platforms?

First thing to remember while designing a mobile game is , mobile industry has super wide auidience , almost everyone has a mobile phone! Of course you are not targeting everyone but keeping your target range as wide as possible is important , this is one of the most important factors in casual side especially.

For mobile game design you need to focus less on the classic game TA division and more on how, where and when your audience will play your mobile. A young audiences may play your game on a subway/bus, they might play while waiting for something else, for that reason you want to create a core loop around 5 minutes with high intensity and a 30 reward loop. If your audience will play your game on the bed/sofa at the end of the working day, you want something low pace, and low intensity with a longer play time.

If you want to make a mobile game you need to be incredibly optimized in these aspects: - Battery: noone wants to play a game that drains your phone - heat: if your game creates a lot of heat, people will feel that and it will scare them, and they will uninstall your phone - multiple devices: your game needs to work on IOS, Android, tablets, foldable, etc it needs to work everywhere. - data saving: If your game will drain the giga of the user it will be uninstalled And finally data and money security, phone contains a lot of private and important data, if your game requires the user to insert those data, you need to make the user feel secure about it

One of the biggest challenges to port our original PC games to mobile was the lack of mouseover and the reduced screen size. We ended up with a classic problem of "too many information, not enough space". Lesson learned: Just a sheer physical limit of the mobile screen can affect the actual the game design. When designing for touch, you also need to think of the actual size of the buttons. In digital design we are usually thinking in pixels, but in real world it all comes to the physical size of our fingers vs screen. Optimal size of the button should represent ±8mm and good enough is ±6mm. Anything below 5mm might be still usable, but it increases the chance of miss-tap and time to hit it. (i.e. buttons for shooting shouldn't be small)

On mobile games depending on genre , nake sure you following the general design rules ; - If you are doing a casual game , vertically make sure your controls , and interactable zone is withing a thumb movement zone. - Don't try to be creative with the controls, in every platform controllers are deisgned to be similar to be used easly and efficently , try t odo the same on mobile , use well known classic controllers and rules.

Mobile screens can be small, curved, with bezel, with notch or without, so on and so forth. The first element is to make sure that your input scheme can work with all these different types of screens. The second element is to try to design an input scheme that leverage the fact that you are on a phone, you have a lot of amazing tools at your disposal Swipe Short press Long press Gyro Front camera Digital buttons Digital joystick Gestures Multi-touch Voice controls Physical buttons (like the volume) Depending on your project you could use all or a part of these

You have to achieve LTV > CPI (lifetime value, cost per install). The higher the LTV, the more you can spend on user acquisition and thus beat the market.

In general you want to achieve a LTV > CPI + RCPU Which means life time value (how much money does a user generate from the momen that they installed the game until they left the game for good) bigger than the cost per install (how much money are you spending in marketing to convince people to install the game) plus the running cost per user (an everage of how much does it cost to keep Game running)

Engagement is one of the key factors for the monetization of the game formula , and the more engaging your game is more profitable your product will become. Try to give your users best experience , mobile market is super crowded and the need a reason to stay in your game.

Continuing on the theme of learning from others, it's essential for a mobile game designer to use free tools like AppMagic or Sensor Tower to identify the most successful competitors. They provide valuable insights into the performance metrics of other games, such as downloads and revenue However, it's not just about quantity; freshness also matters. Many top-ranking games may have held their positions for years, making it challenging for newcomers to break through. Monitoring the longevity and consistency of competitors in the market is crucial Success in mobile game design is also about understanding the ever-changing landscape of the mobile gaming industry, recognizing trends, and being inspired by the innovative approaches of others

Play and deconstruct top-grossing F2P mobile games to understand what made them successful. Use mechanics and features that fit your game to avoid reinventing the wheel.