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Games are powerful tools driving societal change. Whether you want to promote your brand, raise awareness, or inspire action within your community, there are many reasons to create your own game. This blog is a brief introduction to a larger resource—our eBook, Creating Games that Solve Problems—which you can download for FREE today.
Before you dive into game development for your business, let’s cover the basics.
What is Game Development?
Game development is a unique blend of software engineering, creative production, psychology, business, marketing, and subject matter expertise. It brings together many perspectives, which can sometimes conflict. For this reason, having strong project managers and clear communicators on your team is crucial.
Before you begin, here’s some practical advice: everyone involved in the project should be willing to compromise, acknowledge expertise, and stay open-minded. Collaboration is key!
Although the stages of game design and development vary depending on the project's scope, the fundamental phases remain consistent across all projects. And while the process is often shown as a series of linear steps, in reality, it’s iterative, requiring constant refinement to improve the player experience.
Now that you have a clearer picture of the development process and timeline, let’s explore each stage in more detail.
The Game Design Process
Most games follow a three-step process: Design, Deliver, and Iterate. Let’s break down what each of these phases entails, starting with the concept and pre-production in the Design stage.
What Goes into Game Design?
Before defining the project’s scope, you must establish the game concept and set up the pre-production framework. The most important question at this stage is: Is my concept achievable with the team and resources I have?
To answer this, start by focusing on your objective—define the problem you’re trying to solve, not just the game you want to build. Once you’ve clarified the problem, you can choose a game style that aligns with your goal. For example, if you want to make students more interested in astrophysics, a rocket or space simulation might be the best fit.
The main objective is to create a transformational game that resonates with your audience and aligns with the problem-solving approach. This means understanding the core experience and ensuring your game is both fun and effective.
Looking to other games or real-world experiences for inspiration is a great way to kick-start your brainstorming process. Since there are many game genres and styles to choose from, it’s worth spending time exploring all possibilities.
Here are key elements of the design phase critical to your project’s success:
- Target Audience: Understanding exactly who you are making the game for is critical. A small but specific test group will make design iteration smoother, while a broad audience can lead to conflicting feedback and a disjointed end product.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Focus on real-world metrics that you aim to impact. Setting specific KPIs early on helps shape the design and signals when you’ve achieved your goals.
- Technical Requirements: Identify technical requirements early, as they will shape the project. Does your game need to be compatible with various tools? Does it adhere to proper security standards? Understanding these factors from the start is crucial.
- Market Validation Plan: How will you validate the need for your game in the market? Test assumptions to ensure your project succeeds in the real world.
- Maintenance and Support: Plan for ongoing maintenance and support post-launch. Whether it’s for new features, bug fixes, or compatibility updates, accounting for post-launch work early in development is essential.
Game Development Beyond Code and Numbers
With the concept and pre-production done, it’s time to move to development. As mentioned, this process is iterative—test your ideas with your target audience as early as possible to ensure the game is both fun and effective. This may require revising or discarding earlier ideas, but the focus should always be on creating the best fit for your audience.
Don’t get too attached to early designs, as better ideas may emerge later. This is all part of the iterative design process.
The iterative process can be summarized in four steps: Concept, Prototyping, Playtesting, and Evaluation. These stages are centered around testing with the right audience and refining your design through constant feedback:
Development Milestones:Game development is broken into milestones based on progress and test group feedback:
- Pre-Alpha: Creating a prototype without a playable version of the game.
- Alpha: Testing the game internally with the team or a small group of testers.
- Beta: Testing with a broader, external audience.
- Gold: The final version of the game ready for public release.
At each milestone, focus on a small set of features that deliver a significant experience, testing with users after every milestone to refine or adjust based on feedback.
Managing Project Scope
The "Project Scope" describes all features, functionality, and content in the final game. “Out of scope” consists of ideas you lack resources to implement. It’s crucial to identify what’s within scope and what isn’t, as you’ll always have more great ideas than time to execute.
Here are tips for managing scope when working with external developers:
- Development Progress is Non-Linear: 25% of the game’s development doesn’t happen in 25% of the time. Just like building a skyscraper, laying the foundation (planning and design) takes substantial time before you can start constructing levels (features).
- Changes Get Harder as You Progress: Like a skyscraper, changing a foundational feature late in the project requires undoing earlier work.
- Give Early Feedback: Don’t hold your feedback until the end—changes are easier early in the process.
- Understand the Work Involved: Always ask your developers about the complexity of features—what seems simple might be difficult to implement.
- Manage Risk: Be flexible in your budget if you’re introducing innovative mechanics. Be willing to cut features to stay within scope if necessary.
Game development is an iterative process (trust it!)
Once your game is launched, the work doesn’t stop. Post-launch development allows for feature updates, new content, and refining the game based on real-world player data. Additionally, even offline games will require minor updates over time to support new hardware or software standards.
The Three Types of Maintenance:
- Corrective: Fixing bugs and handling immediate software or hardware updates.
- Adaptive: Updating the software core to accommodate system updates (e.g., new devices).
- Perfective: Ongoing updates to improve the game’s overall impact, which usually takes up the majority of post-launch work.
In general, perfective maintenance will take up most of your post-release time (an average of 60% of your maintenance budget), followed by corrective maintenance. It is important to collaborate with developers who can work seamlessly to minimise interruptions to your users!
Marketing: Don’t Forget This Crucial Stage in Game Development
A great game means nothing if no one knows about it. Marketing and promoting your game is just as important as designing and developing it.
It’s easy to assume people will care about your project because of its fun gameplay and noble purpose. But if you fail to communicate that purpose and connect with the right audience, your game will get lost in the crowd.
Marketing requires a dedicated strategy. Start planning early—long before the game is finished. Sending a launch email isn’t enough; you need a marketing plan focused on reaching and engaging your target audience.
The common trend between all of these marketing activities is that you need to understand your audience, and understand how to best communicate with them.
Remember, just like game design and development need the right experts, marketing also requires a specialized skill set to execute campaigns effectively.
And That’s (Pretty Much) It!
This practical advice will help guide you and your team in making informed decisions throughout the game development process. While the journey of designing, developing, iterating, and marketing a game can seem overwhelming, the rewards—especially for games that drive social impact—are well worth the effort.
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