Mobile game development process: Preparing, development, release

Mobile game development is a time consuming and complex task carried out by a whole team of developers. By having access to leading technologies on the market, it is possible to achieve maximum functionality and reference from the audience.

During the mobile game development, the product goes through several main stages:

• Stage «Alpha». The project producer receives a task from the management (sometimes — takes part in its formation), develops a concept (i.e., an initial description) of a new project and collects an initial (alpha) team for its implementation;
• Stage «Pre-production». The alpha team identifies potential risks to the project and either eliminates them or demonstrates the ability to eliminate them in the future. The producer draws up a production plan for the project, forms a complete development team. Project documentation is being written. A prototype of the project is being developedж
• Stage «Soft lunch». The prototype of the project is expanded by the development team to a full-fledged version of the game in accordance with the drawn up plan and project documentation. The stage ends with the release of an early version of the game for the selected market. Typically, such a version contains 30-50% of the total amount of game content and differs from previous technical versions in great stability of work and a small number of errors;
• Stage «Hard lunch». Statistics are collected on the early version of the game, taking these statistics into account, the game is brought to a later version, released on all selected markets. A marketing strategy is selected, a plan for further improvement of the game is formed;
• Stage «Support». A support team is formed (as a rule, this is part of the development team) to release sequential updates taking into account statistics. The producer continues to work on the project as a consultant, shifting the main tasks to the game designer of the support team.

Preparing for Development

At this stage, the following tasks should be performed:

• Drawing up technical specifications for the development of the application. For template solutions, this stage is fast, but for something unique it may take time. If you plan to monetize the application in the future, then invite a business analyst to monitor market offers, as well as promotion specialists — the right advertising will quickly and effectively attract attention to the audience;
• Development of UX (User eXperience — interaction experience) Unity developers or programmers prescribe user behavior scenarios, patterns of movement through the application and functionality. A usability specialist will promptly provide recommendations — it is much easier to tell how to do it than to repeatedly redo the structure;
• Development of the application archtecture: navigation elements, lists, buttons, which will be supplemented by the main code;
• Design development.

Main Stage

The main stage of development includes:

• Development of the main functionality of the application, i.e. why the application is being created, what problems it will solve (in this case, it is important to build on the proposals of competitors and look at the best examples in the field);
• Development of the server side and API (where information is stored and most often processed) + testing;
• Learning to use the server side;
• Design implementation.

Preparing for the Release of the Project

This stage includes the following tasks:

• Filling with information (sometimes you may need a copywriter);
• Testing (this stage of the work takes a lot of time — only after finding and fixing all the shortcomings, you can release the application «into the world»);
• Bugfixing — latest technical improvements;
• Delivery of the project to the client;
• Placing applications on Google Play and the App Store is the bulk of the promotion work. Dedicated specialists issue requirements (keys — by which accompanying texts are written, placements, etc.), thanks to which the application is tested and approved by app stores and becomes available to a wide audience. If this application is for internal communication (B2B), then this block of work can be skipped.

RexSoft Mobile Development

The development of a mobile game can take a minimum of time and money if you contact the specialists of the RexSoft company. Thanks to many years of experience and dozens of successfully implemented projects, each creation of the mobile game development company in the USA is a real masterpiece in the world of mobile gaming. Leading professionals at a price of only $ 28-30 per hour are ready to provide you with outsourced development services.