How Are Games Made?

First of all, wishing you a very happy new year. As we begin this new year I would like to start off this year by creating a habit of writing on LinkedIn. What will I write about? Well, games and game development for starters as that's basically most of the stuff I know. These articles published in this newsletter will be at times snippets from my already published posts either from my books or some fresh new insights that I may find interesting to share with you all. Okay, now that the context is set, let me start off with the first post of 2023 for this newsletter. I'd like to share the process of how a game gets developed. Being in the gaming industry for almost a decade I can walk you through the step by step process of how a game gets developed. Also, this article is actually a chapter from my book 'Game Development 101' so if you like this content then check out my book as well that is available on Amazon which has many more commonly asked questions answered related to game development field. Here's the link:

There’s a proper pipeline of developing a game. Under this process, every sub-process is very critical. Let’s first get a brief overview of the entire process and then we will break it down one by one:

1. Concept phase
2. Documentation phase
3. Prototyping
4. Production phase
5. Testing phase
6. Launch phase
7. Updations and support phase

Concept Phase

This is perhaps the most exciting phase. During this phase the only thing you need to do is come up with an idea for your game. When you come up with an idea it is always a wise thing to start writing those ideas down on a piece of paper. This helps you gather your chain of thought and in general let’s you organise your ideas in one place. While you are thinking about the concept of the game it is very critical for you to make notes of your idea or else you may forget it. The best way to make notes of your idea is by actually creating something known as the “Game Design Document” which is popularly known as GDD in the game development industry. This brings us to the next phase.

Documentation Phase

The documentation phase is perhaps THE most important phase of all as you start formally writing down your ideas in an organised manner in your GDD. GDD is a document where you write all the aspects that hold importance in that game. In a GDD you have to mention game mechanics, game’s art style, the game engine (what is a game engine is explained in a chapter ahead) that is used, target platforms, audience type, different scenarios possible in the game, the number of levels that the game will consist of etc.?

Your documentation phase literally needs to include everything that you can think of for your game and once you are done with it you need to lock down on certain things which will be set in stone. If you revisit and change design decisions of the game mid production then there will be delays in terms of development time. Some key factors to think of in your documentation phase are: Core mechanic, level design, game economy, monetisation design and your overall game structure. You can also plan out menu design or user flow in this phase.

First Time User Experience (FTUE) also needs to be planned in the documentation phase. In simple words this can be termed as your game tutorial. If a player is playing your game for the very first time then you need to be able to communicate to the user how to play the game without physically being present near the user. Your game itself needs to communicate that. Therefore you need to be able to create an intuitive flow which guides the user and handholds them intuitively on how to play the game. All of this needs to be planned in the documentation phase and written down in your GDD.

Once you have your ideas sorted out in your GDD you then move to the next phase.

Prototyping Phase

During this phase, you do an uneven development of the most important and fun aspect of the game. Basically the singular most fun aspect of the game is developed using simple blocks or shapes. Generally creating a prototype is simply a hack by putting together set pieces and some rough code to make things work in an unstructured manner. Obviously after prototyping the game you need to organise your code properly during the production phase but to get the sense of whether what you are going to develop in the production is actually fun or not you need to piece together a simple working mechanic of your game’s core idea. Once you create your prototype it is recommended that you pass it on to a small group of people and take their feedback. This will give you an idea very early on if what you have created is fun or not. If it’s not fun then improve on the prototype until you find the right balance of fun. Once you know that the prototype of your game is fun then you go into production for the game.

All the things that I’ve told before this phase is from the pre-production phase. If your game consists of a story, then it will also come in the pre-production phase. The reason why these things are called “pre-production” is because they literally have to be done before the production begins as they set the foundation for your game. If pre-production is not done properly then there is a high risk of causing a big mess in the production and even potentially ending up making a game that might not be enjoyable and eventually fail in the market.

Therefore, pay close attention to the pre-production phase as this sets the premise for everything that happens post this.

Production Phase

This is where the real fun begins. In the production phase, you actually start making all the assets that replace your blocks and shapes that you used in the prototyping phase. You now start creating proper characters, environments and user interface designs that would be used in the final version of the game. During this phase, you can use many tricks to cut down the required time. If you estimate a total of 3 months for this phase, then you can apply some tricks to reduce the time by half. The trick to this is that many developers, rather than developing their assets on their own, buy assets from the asset store, due to which their development time reduces. Best optimization techniques to cut down your development time are also discussed further in a separate chapter in this book.

You will also need to think of the extra meta that goes into the game such as your ads, in-app purchase, analytics integrations that will be needed in the game. When you are mid-production you also need to start testing your game in parallel.?

Testing Phase

In this phase, you check whether your game is running properly or not. It is very critical to do proper testing of your game primarily because during the development phase we don't know how the game will be played by different sets of people. No matter how good your development capabilities are, it is really difficult to ensure that your game will work properly. Thus getting your game tested is very important. It also helps you understand if whatever you have built is actually fun to play or not. Many times during the development stage we feel that whatever we have made is fun for you but after testing the game with different audiences you might be faced with a hard realisation that the audience does not like your game.?

Furthermore there might be chances of having bugs in the game. When you are in the development phase you tend to generally overlook some bugs or start playing your own game in a very specific manner through which you never encounter that those bugs might be present in your game. But when someone who was not involved in your development process ends up playing your game they might play it in an entirely different way so you need to take that into account and this can happen only when you get your game thoroughly tested.

Launch Phase

Once you feel that your game is tested and is ready for release you go ahead and release your game. However, this is not the end of the story. This is just the beginning. After you launch your game you need to start marketing it. There are thousands of apps and games being uploaded to different stores every single day. You need to be able to get your game out in front of the audience. For this, you need to invest in marketing either through your effort or through campaigns. Your launch phase can easily be termed as a marketing phase. You need to get in front of as many people as you possibly can. I have written a book on marketing your games too titled “How To Market Your Games Like A Pro And Make Money” so you can check that book to get a deeper sense of understanding on how to market your games.

Updations And Support Phase

Once your game is launched and well received by the audience you will start receiving feedback on your game. As mentioned earlier, launching a game is not the end stage. After launching your game you need to study how people are playing your game. You will understand this by looking at user data. Make sure your game has an analytics framework integrated in it so you get an idea about how users are playing your game and based on that data you have to plan out your update cycles. These update cycles can be anything ranging from bug fixes, optimisations, character additions, gameplay improvements, user interface improvements or any general improvements that will enhance the experience of your game. If you cannot update the game then you should abandon it and move on towards the next idea. Abandoning the game is truly an extremely hard decision to make but it is important if your data is not good.?

This phase is also called the support phase because your game is actually an entertainment service for your users. Someone is playing your game and regularly coming back to it because you are able to provide fun to that user and it might happen that the user gets stuck somewhere in your game and contacts you on how to find a solution for it. You have to be proactive enough and provide this support to the user.

If you see no positive result of your game in the market, then think about improving it and if it cannot get improved anymore then abandon it as soon as you can and move on to the next game. But if it works out decently and there is a scope of improvement there, and you think that the game has some potential, then study the game's analytics and release an update cycle of the game.?

Leaving the game untouched after launching it if the data is strong is not a good thing; you will not get a long-term benefit from it, so as you launch a game, you put the same effort into the update cycle as you put in its marketing. If you do so, you will get good monetary results from the game.