People perceive Game Development Process to be complicated. But with a simple guide and interest in heart, video game lovers can develop their games.
A video game is an electronic game mostly played on a computer involving manipulating images produced by different computer programs. Video game development is the process of developing or creating video games. This process involves simple steps that do not require professionals for successful development. Planning is a major step in developing video games. Planning will assist a developer in collecting all the essential tools involved in developing their games. Time wastage is also minimized by proper planning. Today, the video games industry has grown drastically. Many people, especially youths and children, play video games as they are a major entertainment source. Therefore, more video games should be developed to keep up with the demand in the industry. This article will discuss various steps taken to develop video games.
Planning stage
The planning is a very crucial stage of developing a video game. The success of the process relies on how this stage is handled. It is the base of video game development. It involves;
- Designing the type of video game to develop.
- Decide on the characters featured in the game, their number, their nature, and their roles.
- Choosing dimension to be used.
- Choosing the best audience for the game.
- Giving yourself a limit of time to complete the development program.
- Estimating the cost of the whole process and source of the money required, and the other resources.
- Choosing other professionals to be used in the game development, such as writers, actors, and programmers.
The success of the other stages highly depends on planning. Sensitivity makes it the hardest stage of developing video games. Other stages involve implementing the ideas in this stage.
Pre-production stage
Those to be involved in the production are familiarized with their roles at this stage. These include the scriptwriters, the engineers, the actors, the programmers, and the mechanics, among others. This helps them prepare for their specific roles in developing the video. Each party work in harmony to ensure all activities are planned well while implementing all the ideas. This stage calls for practices to ensure the actual performance is perfect. Various meetings are held between different personnel involved in the production.
Production stage
This stage involves the studio work. It is the longest stage in the production process. It involves actualizing the activities that were done in the pre-production stage. The programmers phototypes all the ideas in the game. They incorporate their new ideas in the programming to produce unique work. Programmers perform the most crucial work in this stage which includes modifying graphics, incorporating sounds, creating the language of the game, creating artificial intelligence to be used in the game, etc. Designers and models refine their ideas by creating the best designs to be used in production. They also set the game’s rules, determine different levels, develop the storyline and different game styles. Audios are incorporated in the form of music and background voices that might feature conversations between characters. They manipulate these sounds differently to bring out the intended effect. This is achieved by posing the music and increasing or decreasing the volume of the sounds, which brings out various effects.
Game animators modify the characters, the environment, and the pictures used in the game. The modification gives more life to the character making them look real and interesting. Animators use their experience derived from interaction with different characters to modify other characters.
Video game testers are other specialists required in the production process. They test the quality of the game and ensure the game instructions are well installed. Video testers identify mistakes in the video game for correction.
Post-production stage
The post-production stage has some minor stages, including pre-launching, launching, and post-launching stages.
Pre-launching
Pre-launching is the stage whereby all the specialists involved in developing the video game analyze the results together. It is a challenging stage characterized by anxiety and doubt as they try to consider how the public will view the game. Different feelings from all the video developers towards the game are given a hearing before releasing the final copy. Any correction agreed on by all the developers is done. After corrections are done, the whole team embarks on advertising the game. Advertisement is done before launching the video game by showing some parts, mostly the eye-capturing parts.
Launch stage
At this stage, the video game is finally released to the public and distributed using different avenues. Timing is very important in launching a video game. There should be no long waits between the advertisement of the game and the launching day. Delaying may cause minimal excitement to the audience, making them lose interest. On launching the game, developers come up with different strategies to promote it. The most common way is giving some discounts on the first customers. This strategy has worked well in the video game industry.
Post-launch stage
After a video game is launched, there is still much to be done. The game requires regular updates. Some little hitches might be noticed. Producers ensure that they are put in place. This period is a period of harvest for all who were involved in production. As customers continue to stream the game online, other purchasing the game, all the involved parties get their pay.
The Bottom Line
Video game development is a comprehensive process that may take months or years. It is a challenging process but brings joy to successful developers. The effort put by the specialists in the production determines the period it will take and the quality of the game produced. The better the quality of the video game, the better the performance in the market.