Game development stages

2. Checking the game's market potential

Before starting technical development, it is important to check the viability of the future game in the market. To do this, you need to answer a few questions:

• Are there technical possibilities to create the planned project?
• How big should the team be?
• How much will the development cost and is the planned budget sufficient?
• Do I need a game engine, and which one – Unity , Unreal Engine , etc.?
• Will outside voice actors and writers be hired?
• What are the game monetization options?

3. Preproduction

Once the game concept is established and the budget is approved, the team begins production preparation. This is where writers, artists, animators, programmers, engineers, and other key departments plan the technical implementation and collaboration. Here are some examples of such collaboration:

• The writers flesh out the storyline, define the main characters, their backstory, personalities, and interactions with the world. They then meet with the artists to discuss the characters' looks, styles, palette, and other nuances.
• Engineers agree with the scriptwriters on the number of characters. For example, no more than 100, otherwise the stability of the engine will be disrupted.
• Developers coordinate with engineers on the project's physics, game mechanics, and more.
• The project manager meets with different departments and forms a technical task, taking into account all the nuances.

The result of pre-production is finished sketches of characters, game environments and interfaces , control schemes, and other in-game elements. This allows you to see how they fit into a single virtual world, how they feel to the player, and how they interact with each other.

4. Game implementation

This is the most complex and time-consuming part of game development, during which the project is practically brought to life. The production stage includes:

• script writing;
• developing and animating character models so that they fully correspond to the story being described;
• creating a game environment – a virtual world in which events will take place;
• audio design, consisting of musical accompaniment and sound effects;
• voice acting of characters;
• level design – creating engaging environments that suit different play styles;
• writing code that animates everything that happens on the gamer's screen;

All of these and other technical points can take years of iteration.

5. Testing

Playtesters are responsible for testing every game mechanic, level, landscape element, and equipment. This allows them to eliminate all bugs and errors made during the development phase to provide players with a great user experience.

There are several points to which special attention is paid during the inspection:

• Are there any levels or areas where the game freezes?
• Do all interface elements fit on the screen, taking into account all possible extensions – for example, on different smartphones or monitors with different diagonals?
• Can a character walk through a wall or otherwise get outside the game environment?
• Are all functions working correctly as intended?
• How interesting are the characters' dialogues, and do they last too long?
• Does the game launch correctly on all devices, and are there any crashes?
• Speaking of mobile games, how does the game behave in cases of incoming calls, messages, and other things?

There are different types of playtesters in game development. For example, some are involved in stress testing – they endlessly bump into walls and landscape elements in an attempt to “break the game”. Others assess the “enjoyment factor” – how interesting the gameplay is from the gamer’s point of view, the difficulty of the levels, or whether the storyline is interesting. That is, they play the game to determine whether it satisfies the needs of the target audience.

After dozens of hours of thorough testing, the project is ready for pre-launch.

6. Beta test and pre-release preparation

Beta testing helps identify flaws that were noticed during the testing process so that they can be fixed before the official release.

In addition, a pre-launch often becomes part of a marketing campaign and helps to "warm up" gamers' interest in a new project.

7. Release and post-launch support of the game

The release is rightly considered the most exciting stage, when the game is available to the masses of gamers and begins to pay off. However, even after the official launch, the technical work on the project does not end.

To maintain the long-term interest of the audience, the game must evolve. Updates, in-game events, new characters, balance adjustments - all this will help the project remain popular even after many years.

Game development at Arionis Games

For us, at Arionis Games, each new game is not just a new project. It is a separate universe in which millions of people around the world can spend hours of their personal time.

We know how to make an exciting game project, even given the fierce competition in this market, and we have the necessary experience for technical implementation.