Essential Guide to game content development for those who think they have a great game idea, but don't know what to begin with.
The Guide covers:
pre-production - idea development, plot overview, how to staff your game development team and schedule game production,
production - game development stages, insights from real-life game development cases
2. If you’re viewing this presentation right now, it suggests at this point you have a good
idea of what assets and elements you need to prepare for a game development
project. But you still have questions such as “how do I construct each major
component to complete my game?” and “where do I begin?”, don’t you?
This Guide will show you how to effectively plan your game content development
project, staff your game development team and will walk you through all stages from
idea development to product finalization and release.
Ready for this journey with us? Let’s go!
Intro
3. Want to skip ahead? Here’s what we’re going to cover
PRE-PRODUCTION
5 … Idea Development
7 … Game Plot Overview
11 ... Staffing Your Development
Team
20 … Scheduling Game Production
PRODUCTION
22 … Game Development
Stages
14 … Insights From Real
Life
4. Pre-Production
Thinking your have a great game idea is not enough in the game development
world. What your really need is a clear action plan envisioning all of the major
pitfalls that may be awaiting you in the course of your game development project.
5. Idea Development
Make sure you think your game idea through to its end in order to have a
complete vision of your end product1
2 Create a list of all assets you need to create vs the timeframe of their
completion in order to make the right decision about your future
development team structure and skills needed to develop a game
3 Consult with a gaming industry expert or those who understand game
development process to get insights and gather feedback on your game
idea (basically, try to get expert answers to such questions as “is it still
topical?”, “what do other similar games offer?”, “how will my game make
a difference?”…)
6. Up-to-date graphics is important to capture the
audience, but content is still the King! So, come up
with a way to make your game truly cool and fun by
offering great UX, ‘putting a new spin’ on a popular
game feature, using elements that have never been
used in similar genre games before…
1
2 Always think through your player’s perspective, what takeaways they’ll
gain from playing your game and how they can become your game fans
and advocates. Only devoted fans will ensure your game’s sustainability!
Remember
7. Game Plot Overview
The Story1
Game plot is needed to push the
action along. The plot will help
you determine the type of assets
you will need to develop the
actual game.
Develop your game’s plot in a
narrative way, just as if you were
writing a fiction story. See
example on the right.
Source: www.pearsonhighered.com
8. Game Plot Overview
Your plot can be linear or non-linear, see below
Source:
www.gatheryourparty.com/
9. Your Player’s Perspective
Now when you’ve developed a plot, try to draft out how your players will be
exposed to the plot during the gameplay (see examples below)
Game Plot Overview
Source: www.pearsonhighered.com
11. Staffing Your Development Team
Determine the skills that will most likely be needed for your game
development project. Due to the cost factor, many startup game
studios make a common critical mistake – they hire few specialists to
fulfill several roles. As a rule, these specialists are pretty junior and are
managed by a single senior guy. Such team structures often fail to
deliver quality products on time because of occupational burnout
(having to work overtime to meet the deadlines, multi-tasking, etc) and
lack of professional expertise.
We suggest that you hire mid and senior IT and creative guys for the
most complex tasks within your game development project and have
one person do his own work. While this approach may sound too
prodigal, it’ll prove to be a smart one in a long run when you won’t
have to spend additional money and time fixing bugs at a post-release
stage!
1
12. Staffing Your Development Team
2 Since timing and cost efficiency are really two most important factors in
gaining a competitive advantage and winning a certain market or a niche,
you should consider alternative ways to staff your game development
project. Read our blog post to learn more about different successful
models for game development and how offshore IT staffing can actually
help you do more for less, and develop a very fast go-to-market strategy.
13. Staffing Your Development Team
1 Concept artist:
•Preparation of all creative materials including sketches, drafts, creation of
characters, objects (e.g., vehicles, weapons) and map layouts
•2D / 3D artwork creation
•Basic design
Roles you’ll need for your game development project
2 Level designer:
•Knowledge of 3d party design tools such as UnrealEd and 3D art packages
(Max/Maya)
•2D / 3D modeling
•Game mapping
14. Staffing Your Development Team
3 Modeler:
•Conversion of 2D artwork into 3D assets to be imported into your game
•Polygonal modeling
Roles you’ll need for your game development project
4 Animator:
•Creation of control systems to turn your character models into the digital puppets
to manipulate with
•Creation of the entire game’s motion system
15. Staffing Your Development Team
5 Software developer:
•Coding and integrating the whole functionality into the game
•Front-end and back-end programming
Roles you’ll need for your game development project
6 Project Manager (or Team Lead):
•Oversees the project and makes sure each project element is completed on time
and on budget
•Helps unite the team, solve internal problems, increase team morale
•Acts as an intermediary between client and game development service provider
16. Staffing Your Development Team
7 Web designer:
•Creation of game’s webpages, online communities and other online media outlets
used to promote your game
•Keeping all web properties’ design up to date
Roles you’ll need for your game development project
8 QA Engineer:
•Oversees the project from the quality’s perspective
•Checks the game for bugs and errors
•Conducts full quality assurance control
17. Rough Cost of an 8-persons game development
team
For rough calculation and detailed information please
check out our
blog post on what it costs to start a game development studio
USA - ~$618,000 / year
Ukraine - ~$352,000 / year
19. Define roles clearly
1
2
3
4
Share your game’s vision and mission
Place your team members according to their personality types to reach
maximum compatibility and agility (hire a consultant to help you out)
Reward your team for meeting the deadlines or critical project milestones,
finding a non-trivial solution, ‘re-inventing a bicycle’, etc.
Meet with your team regularly and collect their feedback
5
Read real-life stories of effective offshore Agile team management, and
distributed development team management
20. SCHEDULING YOUR GAME PRODUCTION
Create an individual schedule for each team member stating specific
details and timeframes for each task assigned to the person
Compile all of the individual schedules into a Master Schedule and build
your Agile Scrum practice around it
21. 1 Your PM / team lead follows both the team as a whole and each
individual team member’s progress and keeps everyone on schedule
After production has officially kicked off, make sure
2 Your PM / team lead only uses constructive rather than destructive
criticism to maintain a healthy team morale
Game Production
3 Your PM / team lead is able to minimize (inevitable) delays in the delivery
22. 1 Integrating all completed project assets into a functional game (level
designers and developers are mostly involved here)
Game development stages
2 Testing and feedback collection
Game Production
• Alpha testing (internal testing) – done in-house among team members
and testers
• Beta testing (external testing) – done within a selected circle of
external users minding high security aimed to prevent game’s leakage
to the public
23. 3 Remodeling and finalizing
Game development stages
Game Production
• Your game is fully built and undergoing final testing
• You’re wrapping up your beta testing
• Your web designer starts promoting the launch date
4 Releasing your game to the app stores and game centers
24. Listen to experts discussing how to set up a software development team
offsite and sharing best practices of external Agile development team
management
play podcast
25. BY INTERSOG
Intersog is a global provider of IT Staffing and managed web, mobile and game
development services.
Founded in 2005, Intersog has developed more than 200 native apps for the
Apple’s App Store and more than 70 apps for Google Play and received several
industry recognition awards including "Best iPhone Development Company 2011"
by the Best Web Agency, “Best App Ever Award 2011 & 2012”, AppPicker’s Best
Project Management Apps for iPad (2013), etc.
Check out our Game Development Portfolio or
contact us for client references!