You're a professional game developer. What's the best way to develop your next game?

The best way to develop your next game is to carefully plan your project, breaking it down into manageable tasks and setting realistic deadlines. Prioritize tasks based on their impact on gameplay and core mechanics. Utilize available resources such as game development engines, asset stores, and online communities for support and guidance. Regularly playtest your game and seek feedback from peers or online communities to iterate and improve. Stay organized, focused, and disciplined throughout the development process, and don't hesitate to seek help or collaborate with others when needed, whether it's for specific skills or aspects of the game development process.

Your game development process will largely depend on the game you aim to create and the resources you have. If you're starting from scratch, your first step is to decide on the game you wish to build and understand why you want to create it. If you already have an idea about the game you want to develop, you should build a quick prototype first. Only proceed further with your project when you have enough confidence that your game can either be fun or potentially fulfill your purpose for its development.

Starting your next game project begins with a simple question: what's your goal? Are you chasing the big bucks, or is this more of a passion project to fuel your creativity and learn something new? Success can look different for everyone. Next, chop up the big picture into bite-sized pieces. What’s the essence of your game? Who’s going to love playing it? Pick your development tools wisely, sketch out a prototype, and plan your iterations carefully to avoid getting lost in endless additions. Marketing your game and planning post-launch updates are important too. Breaking it down into manageable steps makes the journey enjoyable and, most importantly, doable. Determine your vision and stand-out factor.

It’s important for a team to determine the vision of the game and hold everyone to it. Define your core pillars, what your team is trying to achieve, and what a successful version of your project will look like. Instilling trust with key stakeholders is paramount, researching your competition is vital, and understanding your core audience will contribute to taking steps in the right direction of potentially making a successful game.

You should define the emotional experience you want your players to have from the very beginning. Mechanics, themes, scope, all these things can metamorphosize throughout development as you uncover more and more about what works and feels right. But the guiding light that you should measure everything against is that emotional experience you're trying to deliver.

Once you have fixed your vision you also need to decide the devices it will be available on. Depending on the device you can decide the platform the game will be made on for eg if it is for consoles or PCs it is better to use Unity or unreal engine or else if it is on webgl phaser will be preferred. Also keep in mind the language you have experience in as all engines have different coding languages they support

I would start thinking of the objective of the project, there are many reasons to create games...up your portfolio, study, earn money. If you want publishing, you'll need to search for trending genres, best model of monetize your project and mainly what's at your range as a solo developer

The toolkit chosen for game development, including engines, frameworks, and collaboration tools, plays a pivotal role in bringing the vision to life

Choosing your tools is imperative. It's so easy to hear this and think it's a no brainer, but when you fail to choose the best tools and realize it 3,4 years in to development, you'll truly understand. In modernity, Unreal is the clear star for a turnkey engine package, but back when I was part of the decision making process deciding between Unreal and Unity, they were much more comparable. We ended up choosing Unity because they took no % of sales. The entire production was plagued from the beginning as we tried to shoehorn in unsupported functionality constantly hoping the issues would be resolved in later updates. Another big mistake, if your turnkey engine isn't working today, refocus your vision or go with something else.

This is a very important step so you should be clear of your requirements and then choose tools or engines based on that for eg: If you plan to make a side scroller or 2.5D game you will find it easy to make in UNITY as compared to UNREAL but if your game relies on Insane quality visuals and Landscapes that stretch vast fields and Photorealistic lighting etc. , all this will be easy to achieve in Unreal Engine . So identify what you want to focus on and pick up the tools based on that

Prototyping is crucial in game development, saving resources & money. Early testing identifies issues, enhances collaboration, and aligns with player expectations. Prioritizing efficiency through strategic prototyping is key for top developers.

It's never too early to start talking about your game idea and collecting contact information from those who are interested. Building a group of prototypers whose feedback you trust is incredibly valuable.

When the team comes up with a game idea, it's important to build a prototype as soon as possible, primarily focusing on testing the core mechanics and the overall fun factor of the game. If the core mechanic isn't engaging or fun enough, it's more efficient for the team to swiftly shift gears and move on to the next concept, repeating the prototyping process. For ambitious and riskier game ideas, I would suggest the team build a more extensive prototype, i.e. a horizontal slice, to better evaluate its potential. Fortunately, there are many existing tools, such as Unreal and Unity, that empower the team to create these prototypes without an excessive investment of time and money, allowing for rapid iteration and development.

Ideas are fun but ultimately everyone has hundreds. Show me, do not tell me. A prototype is the hard proof that the idea has substance, that it will work. Games that take too long to build a solid working prototype will often fail. People will tell you: Well it's not fun yet but once we add this it should be fun. Get to that simple first loop of gameplay that prooves the game is fun as quickly as possible.

Prototype as soon as possible and try to find the fun or hook in your core gameplay. What makes it tick. There's several side-mechanics and structures that you can add later to enhance, polish and highlight your core, but you should test it on its own and make sure you can see the potential there. Iterate until you can see that potential. Don't be afraid to modify your original idea to explore a different direction. And if nothing works, move on to the next idea.

Taking time for iteration means you improve on all of the ideas you've implemented, and cut away what doesn't serve your core experience. You sand down rough edges, build up what already works, and confirm each part of the game is doing what it's supposed to. Want to ensure art, systems, or story have the impact you want it to have? Test it, then iterate based on the feedback. This makes projects stand out, turning good games into great games.

Iteration is key to resonating with players. It’s a cycle of refinement – testing, adjusting, and testing again – to ensure everything from gameplay mechanics to UX is spot on. This approach helps us spot issues early on, tweak the challenge level to hit the sweet spot between too easy and impossibly hard, and refine the feel and responsiveness. It’s our way of staying in tune with our players, injecting new life into our projects with innovative ideas. Think of it as continually polishing artwork; it takes time and a lot of tweaking, but the end product is something truly special that players can’t get enough of. It’s this meticulous process that transforms a good game into a great one, making all the hard work totally worth it.

Sometimes, considering all the metrics, a game may seem good and profitable enough. Often, everyone tries to create something similar based on it, and as a result, all iterations boil down to simply changing sprites over and over. But sometimes it's worth "rotate game's view" to look at it from a different angle and find a new idea within existing mechanics. This way, you can save on development and offer a product of comparable quality.

Baby steps! Já ouviu falar disso? N?o é do dia pra noite que o seu protótipo de action em 3a pessoa vai se tornar o próximo GTA brasileiro. As etapas de itera??o s?o t?o importantes quanto o planejamento, desenvolvimento e a publica??o de um jogo. Quanto mais feedback você pegar dos testers (ou até mesmo de pessoas próximas a você), mais oportunidades você terá de mudar alguma coisa e deixar melhor do que já estava antes. N?o tenha medo de alterar alguma coisa achando que vai desagradar seu público: tenha medo de n?o alterar nada achando que está fazendo o jogo perfeito :)

One of the hardest parts of iteration is doing so during game development. No design can be fully comprehensive and features must be tested out throughout development. As a game starts to come together, feedback from multiple stakeholders becomes easier to provide. The reason mid development iteration is so challenging is it can impact all departments of the team, and features come in at different rates. Be mindful to consider the impact of feedback, but also really prioritise what is important to change. Try to minimise disruption by being as comprehensive and as detailed as possible when iterating, also be sure to involve others in the reasons for change and aim for a discussion.

Marketing games is vital- and it’s often true that every dollar spent on development should be matched in marketing budget. The same could be said of time you invest. Every hour spent developing a game, you should also consider spending it sharing your game with potential audiences, aka community building. Remember to hire specialists in this area of communication and community building- it really will pay off long term as it’s often a 24/7 need for your business.

"Marketing should start as early as possible" Um, this is not really true. What is true is that a game needs a period of time to build audience anticipation (for example through Steam wishlists etc), but also it's entirely possible to mess that up if initial versions of a game look too early or too ill-formed. A bad demo, for example, can be death. So yes market, but do so when both early and at least somewhat ready to show the magic.

A common mistake I've seen from other game developers (specifically AAA) with this step is trying to market the game to everyone. As hard as it may be to admit, your game is not going to please everyone, which is why it's important to try and identify a target audience. Said audience doesn't necessarily need to be one specific group of people, but you will need to get a general understand of what demographics or people of certain interests will like your game so you can market accordingly.

Market your game should really be point 0, not 5. The first thing you should ask yourself if you are making a commercial game is "Am I bringing something new to the market?". If the answer is no, then you will have a very hard time with marketing no matter how good the execution is.

Identify your target audience and build for them. use player persona, role play and avoid (The target audience is everyone). There are no life changing games that didn't upset anyone. There are plenty of games that were supposed to make everyone happy, that pleased none. If you do right by your target audience. Word of mouth is going to be a scream rather than a whisper. Oh and don't underestimate the current influence of streamers. If your game is watchable as well as playable. This is a good avenue to explore.

Les mises à jour des jeux déjà commercialisés sont cruciales pour maintenir la qualité, l'intérêt et la satisfaction des joueurs. Elles permettent aux développeurs de continuer à soutenir et à faire évoluer leur jeu au fil du temps, créant ainsi une relation durable avec leur communauté de joueurs.

There are a lot of common mistakes made by developers when it comes to updating: It often misses strategy. Game designers tend to work on new content and features, adding new maps or levels. It's something that is fun to work on, but often not what is really needed for success or even seen by most players who churn early in the game. Focus on the first part first. Make it easier, more fun, catchier, less buggy, and more technically seamless. Talking about bugs: it is totally underrated how these kill the fun and how important it is to eliminate them, especially in the beginning of the game.

Post-launch, updating becomes a key strategy to keep games relevant and engaging. Adding new content, features, and optimizations ensures the game remains fresh for existing and new players. Effective communication and a well-structured roadmap keep players informed about upcoming updates, fostering ongoing engagement.

it is also very helpful to use version control for backups in case of corruption! When i started out my game dev journey i lost some projects that were around half a year of progress due to not having a backup in case!

Don't look at your product as "Your Child"! They are a Product, They are for sale, They can be Failed, They can bought, and They can be forgotten. Sometimes you have to believe that a product has failed and you have to start again. Use all of your experience for the next product.

"Your" game is going to end up being the player's game if it is even moderately successful. As you develop the game, keep that in mind. No idea is too good to be dropped. The players will ultimately show you where you need to be going, or if the idea just isn't panning out. Paying attention to that is far more important than any plans you might have had. It'll save you a lot of time and potentially years of productive effort from you and others.

The games market is constantly changing and reacting, especially inside big game publishers which are far less risk averse. If you're going indie after a career in AAA, make something scoped in and polished and get it out the door. Get people to play it. Creating market traction will get the bigger financiers and publishers to notice it. Don't lock your game behind too much code. Make sure to create the engineering and blueprints so that design elements are exposed and alterable, allowing everyone from a tech designer to a producer to make adjustments and iterate the game quickly in a pinch. Build a community organically. It's the best marketing you can have and it's essential to success.

Start with a story... forget eveything else, all the cool, tech and tools and great looking other games out there. A good narative will keep a player engaged no matter how the game looks

Making a game it's a combination of multiple elements: - vision & theme - market research - development experience (of each individual and team as a whole) - team capacity - budget - tech limitations - target audience - deadlines Real Professional takes into account all elements from above. Ignoring any of them is a strong sign of an amateur development approach.