"Complete Game Development Roadmap For Biginner | 2024 | GDS"
Introduction:
Hello, Indie game developers! If you want to know about the game development roadmap, you click on the right blog. Before you start developing your game, make a roadmap for your game. It will help you to stay on the right path.In this article, I will tell you what is a roadmap in a very easy way, along with the complete process of developing a game from start to finish.
Game development is a very complex process, So read this blog carefully and then make a complete roadmap.
So, let's begin without wasting any time.
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What is a Roadmap for a Video Game?
A roadmap of a video game is a plan made by game designers to strategically summarize the overall development process. It includes features, concepts, challenges, and achievements throughout a specific period.
It is generally created before the actual development starts so that game developers communicate with each other and act accordingly.
How do you guys come up with Ideas for your Games?
The most difficult part of game development is to come up with a game idea that is unique and has the potential to sell. If you are a beginner, then you might face difficulty but don't worry I will tell you the best way to come up with game ideas.
Below are my 4 steps process to come up with a unique video game idea:
Choose the Theme:
There are so many themes you can choose from. Pick the theme that you like or get inspiration for some popular game. Some of the themes are horror, Sci-fi, fantasy, superhero, historical, etc.
Pick the Genre:
Once you choose the theme, now it's time to select the genre. A genre refers to the style or type of your game. Again there are so many genres each with subgenres, and you can also combine multiple genres to come up with unique ideas. Here are some examples of genres:
RPG, Action, Strategy, Simulation, etc.
Think about it:
Once you have selected both theme and genre, now start thinking about the game. How it's going to be, what will be the story and plot, and what will be the game mechanics? Write every single thought on a paper, or notebook. Write down about characters, mechanics, script, and environment.
Test it:
The last step for coming up with a unique idea is to test the ideas that you are writing on a paper. Create a prototype, ask your friends or family to give feedback, fix errors and improve it, and play it again and again until you are satisfied with yourself and with your idea.
If you fail don't worry repeat the process with a different theme and genre until you come up with a unique idea.
The most difficult part of game development is to come up with a game idea that is unique and has the potential to sell. If you are a beginner, then you might face difficulty but don't worry I will tell you the best way to come up with game ideas.
Below are my 4 steps process to come up with a unique video game idea:
- Choose the Theme.
- Pick the Genre.
- Think about it.
- Test it.
Choose the Theme:
There are so many themes you can choose from. Pick the theme that you like or get inspiration for some popular game. Some of the themes are horror, Sci-fi, fantasy, superhero, historical, etc.
Pick the Genre:
Once you choose the theme, now it's time to select the genre. A genre refers to the style or type of your game. Again there are so many genres each with subgenres, and you can also combine multiple genres to come up with unique ideas. Here are some examples of genres:
RPG, Action, Strategy, Simulation, etc.
Think about it:
Once you have selected both theme and genre, now start thinking about the game. How it's going to be, what will be the story and plot, and what will be the game mechanics? Write every single thought on a paper, or notebook. Write down about characters, mechanics, script, and environment.
Test it:
The last step for coming up with a unique idea is to test the ideas that you are writing on a paper. Create a prototype, ask your friends or family to give feedback, fix errors and improve it, and play it again and again until you are satisfied with yourself and with your idea.
If you fail don't worry repeat the process with a different theme and genre until you come up with a unique idea.
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Always consider your game requirements when choosing the game engine. For example, If you want very advanced graphics, then you may need an engine with those capabilities.
Ease Of Use:
Also, make sure that the engine is easy to use and that you have expertise and experience in that game engine.
Community:
A community is a group of people all around the world that help each other solve problems related to game development or that particular game engine. So make sure the engine has a large community, if you are stuck in the future, they will help you out.
Cross-Platform Compatibility:
Another thing to consider when choosing the game engine is to check the cross-platform capabilities of the engine. So if you want to release your game on multiple platforms you don't get any issues.
Price:
Game engines are free but with limitations. So, check the terms and conditions, pricing, and licensing to it matches your budget or not.
Take your time and choose wisely otherwise, It will become a headache in the long run, I recommend Unity over Unreal for beginner. (go with unity you will love it ).
Which Game Engine to choose?
Consider your Requirements:Always consider your game requirements when choosing the game engine. For example, If you want very advanced graphics, then you may need an engine with those capabilities.
Ease Of Use:
Also, make sure that the engine is easy to use and that you have expertise and experience in that game engine.
Community:
A community is a group of people all around the world that help each other solve problems related to game development or that particular game engine. So make sure the engine has a large community, if you are stuck in the future, they will help you out.
Cross-Platform Compatibility:
Another thing to consider when choosing the game engine is to check the cross-platform capabilities of the engine. So if you want to release your game on multiple platforms you don't get any issues.
Price:
Game engines are free but with limitations. So, check the terms and conditions, pricing, and licensing to it matches your budget or not.
Take your time and choose wisely otherwise, It will become a headache in the long run, I recommend Unity over Unreal for beginner. (go with unity you will love it ).
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After you come up with a unique idea by following my method and also have chosen the game engine, best for your game. It's time to make graphics stuff of your game.
Before starting, first decide what type of game you want to make, 2D or 3D. The game graphics include creating the character models, levels, environmental props, and assets.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when making graphics for your game.
Be consistent:
The art style of a game is the overall look of your game. For example, the art style of horror games mostly consists of elements like old textures, darkness, silence, and alone.
For a 3d game, there are several art styles like Realism, Fantasy Realism, low poly art, hand painting, and cartoon.
Be consistent with your art style throughout the game.
Use color effectively:
From advertisement to entertainment, in video games also companies spent thousands of dollars to catch your attention. Among all colors green, yellow, and red are the most attractive colors. Colors are a very powerful way to grab the user's attention if done in the right way.
Besides colors, there are several other techniques like sticking to a particular color pallet, changing shapes, size, rotation, and adding motion to a particular object. Use them to highlight an event, create a mood, or an important event.
According to data, orange and red show excitement, and energy, cool colors like blue green, and yellow are relaxing, and bright colors grab the attention quickly.
Example:
Most of you have played Candy Crush, it's a good example when it comes to using colors effectively in games. The game uses vibrant colors to make candy pieces stand out and can be distinguished.
Keep it simple:
Folks, hold on! Game development is a complex process, so it's nice advice to keep it simple from the beginning. Due to our irresponsibility and mismanagement, it become worse and worse. So always keep your game simple, organize your game files, rename every file, and delete unnecessary files.
Example :
A good example of a simple game is “Flappy Bird”. It's easy to control, simple objective, minimalistic design, and comes with linear difficulty which makes it more fun to play.
Optimize for performance:
Optimization refers to how well the application runs on a system. There is no point in making a game if you don't keep it optimized, I always make sure that my game can run on even a toaster.
Compress your textures, and write clean code using state machines. No need to worry, all big game engines out there provide a bunch of optimization tools to help you clean the yard.
Example:
Minecraft is the best example of an optimized games. It has very simple graphics. The game optimization is due to procedural generation which loads a large infinite map. Another thing is that it uses processor and memory resources effectively, and only loads a small chunk of the world.
file sizes matter:
I don't know about others, but I have anxiety when downloading games of more than 10 GB because my internet sucks. You should always try to minimize the file size, just optimize the game it will automatically minimize.
Example:
I want to give an example of a game that is highly popular, simple, and has a very small file size, It's Among Us. It was released in 2018 and became popular in Covid. The game size is under 100 MB, making it easy for everyone to download and play.
How to Develop a Game:
Design the Graphics :After you come up with a unique idea by following my method and also have chosen the game engine, best for your game. It's time to make graphics stuff of your game.
Before starting, first decide what type of game you want to make, 2D or 3D. The game graphics include creating the character models, levels, environmental props, and assets.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when making graphics for your game.
Be consistent:
The art style of a game is the overall look of your game. For example, the art style of horror games mostly consists of elements like old textures, darkness, silence, and alone.
For a 3d game, there are several art styles like Realism, Fantasy Realism, low poly art, hand painting, and cartoon.
Be consistent with your art style throughout the game.
Use color effectively:
From advertisement to entertainment, in video games also companies spent thousands of dollars to catch your attention. Among all colors green, yellow, and red are the most attractive colors. Colors are a very powerful way to grab the user's attention if done in the right way.
Besides colors, there are several other techniques like sticking to a particular color pallet, changing shapes, size, rotation, and adding motion to a particular object. Use them to highlight an event, create a mood, or an important event.
According to data, orange and red show excitement, and energy, cool colors like blue green, and yellow are relaxing, and bright colors grab the attention quickly.
Example:
Most of you have played Candy Crush, it's a good example when it comes to using colors effectively in games. The game uses vibrant colors to make candy pieces stand out and can be distinguished.
Keep it simple:
Folks, hold on! Game development is a complex process, so it's nice advice to keep it simple from the beginning. Due to our irresponsibility and mismanagement, it become worse and worse. So always keep your game simple, organize your game files, rename every file, and delete unnecessary files.
Example :
A good example of a simple game is “Flappy Bird”. It's easy to control, simple objective, minimalistic design, and comes with linear difficulty which makes it more fun to play.
Optimize for performance:
Optimization refers to how well the application runs on a system. There is no point in making a game if you don't keep it optimized, I always make sure that my game can run on even a toaster.
Compress your textures, and write clean code using state machines. No need to worry, all big game engines out there provide a bunch of optimization tools to help you clean the yard.
Example:
Minecraft is the best example of an optimized games. It has very simple graphics. The game optimization is due to procedural generation which loads a large infinite map. Another thing is that it uses processor and memory resources effectively, and only loads a small chunk of the world.
file sizes matter:
I don't know about others, but I have anxiety when downloading games of more than 10 GB because my internet sucks. You should always try to minimize the file size, just optimize the game it will automatically minimize.
Example:
I want to give an example of a game that is highly popular, simple, and has a very small file size, It's Among Us. It was released in 2018 and became popular in Covid. The game size is under 100 MB, making it easy for everyone to download and play.
Consider the user interface:
Insert me a question “How can you make your players interact with your game”, obviously UI aka “user interface.” UI and UX are the not same thing but they are, I don't know what I am writing.
Make your UI easy, simple, and understandable the first time. Bad UI leads to a bad experience which results in poor selling of your game.
example:
The Legend of Zelda has one of the best User Interface UI. The game was released by Nintendo in 2017 and is praised for its simple, easy-to-understand, and innovative design.
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Code the Game:
After you make your 3d models for the player, idle, and walk animations you need to code your player to move.
After you make your 3d models for the player, idle, and walk animations you need to code your player to move.
Programming is one of the most important parts of game development, if done
wrong it leads to poor performance.
If you know how to type “Hello World”, then most welcome. Otherwise, you need to hire a professional developer.
If you know how to type “Hello World”, then most welcome. Otherwise, you need to hire a professional developer.
But don't worry, All big engines come with visual scripting which anyone
can learn and program. Unity has BOLT while
Unreal engine comes with
blueprintnt.
It is a long process, depending on how large your game is. Here are some tips before your program.
Break down your game into smaller pieces:
As you develop your game, it becomes more and more complex and creep, hard to maintain. It a good advice to break your game into smaller pieces of chunks.
Test Your Code Thoroughly:
It is a long process, depending on how large your game is. Here are some tips before your program.
Break down your game into smaller pieces:
As you develop your game, it becomes more and more complex and creep, hard to maintain. It a good advice to break your game into smaller pieces of chunks.
Test Your Code Thoroughly:
Test your code again and again until you are fully satisfied. Here are some tips to keep in mind.
- Clean code should be readable. ...
- Clean code should be elegant. ..
- Clean code should be simple and easy to understand. ...
- Clean code should be easy to understand, easy to change, and easy to take care of.
- Clean code should run all the tests.
Test the Product:
After you have completed the game, it's time for testing and identifying bugs and errors. This is the phase where a bunch of errors will pop out and you have to fix them one by one.
I love playtesting of my game. You get to know all the dark side of your game. You can do testing of your game by yourself, if possible you can hire playtesters that will playtest for you.
It's essential to get feedback from playtesters and be open to criticism. Below are some tips you should consider when testing your game.
Cross-Platform:
When you are making your game for PC or consoles, there are no problems. But if you decide to make a game, a pile of problems is there. For mobile games, you have to test it on several mobiles of different screen sizes, resolutions, and specs.
Tet for Crashes:
Games suck, when they crash, ultimately spoiling the user experience. So test everything, if the game crashes due to any reason, test it and resolve it before you hit the launch button.
After you have completed the game, it's time for testing and identifying bugs and errors. This is the phase where a bunch of errors will pop out and you have to fix them one by one.
I love playtesting of my game. You get to know all the dark side of your game. You can do testing of your game by yourself, if possible you can hire playtesters that will playtest for you.
It's essential to get feedback from playtesters and be open to criticism. Below are some tips you should consider when testing your game.
Cross-Platform:
When you are making your game for PC or consoles, there are no problems. But if you decide to make a game, a pile of problems is there. For mobile games, you have to test it on several mobiles of different screen sizes, resolutions, and specs.
Tet for Crashes:
Games suck, when they crash, ultimately spoiling the user experience. So test everything, if the game crashes due to any reason, test it and resolve it before you hit the launch button.
Publish the Game:
Here comes the last but most important part of your game development journey. Marketing your game, convincing players to play your game, requesting YouTubers to promote your game, and a lot of things.
According to CodeMonkey “the number one skill you should have as a game developer is marketing”. If you want to succeed in the gaming industry, there are two things you should know,
You don't need to collect an audience for your game, each store has its audience, you just need to convince them. There are several stores to publish your game such as Steam, Play Store, Apple Store, Playstation, and Xbox.
Research your target audience. Spent some bucks on promoting your game. Find out some YouTubers who will play your game for very little money.
If possible go to game events or conferences like GDC. Make a good trailer for your game and promote it on social media.
Here comes the last but most important part of your game development journey. Marketing your game, convincing players to play your game, requesting YouTubers to promote your game, and a lot of things.
According to CodeMonkey “the number one skill you should have as a game developer is marketing”. If you want to succeed in the gaming industry, there are two things you should know,
- How to make a game
- How to sell it
You don't need to collect an audience for your game, each store has its audience, you just need to convince them. There are several stores to publish your game such as Steam, Play Store, Apple Store, Playstation, and Xbox.
Research your target audience. Spent some bucks on promoting your game. Find out some YouTubers who will play your game for very little money.
If possible go to game events or conferences like GDC. Make a good trailer for your game and promote it on social media.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, a roadmap is the pillar of your game development process. As I have mentioned many times games are complex and making games are more complex. It's very hard, especially for indie game developers to maintain momentum and develop the game.
I hope you find this blog informative and if you then subscribe to our blog. I appreciate you. I write informative blogs on game design and development.
If you want to know about any other topics you may find it on our blog.
Thanks for reading.
In conclusion, a roadmap is the pillar of your game development process. As I have mentioned many times games are complex and making games are more complex. It's very hard, especially for indie game developers to maintain momentum and develop the game.
I hope you find this blog informative and if you then subscribe to our blog. I appreciate you. I write informative blogs on game design and development.
If you want to know about any other topics you may find it on our blog.
Thanks for reading.
FAQs
How can a game development roadmap help in project planning?
A game development roadmap provides a timeline of tasks and milestones. Outlines the development process, from idea to launch. It tells developers what to do next and keeps them on the path. It also ensures effective team collaboration.
What tools or software can be used to create a game development roadmap?
There are plenty of software you can use to create a roadmap for your game, including:
How often should a game development roadmap be reviewed and updated?
The game development roadmap is not permanent, it should be updated and checked regularly at the end of each phase. This could mean weekly or monthly, depending on the size of your games.
How can a game development roadmap help in identifying potential risks and challenges?
The roadmap assists you by telling you about the potential risks and hurdles by providing a detailed guide of the project's timeline and goals. This proactive approach allows for early risk assessment and mitigation strategies, reducing the likelihood of delays or unexpected issues.
How can stakeholders benefit from a well-defined game development roadmap?
Big companies have investors and a well-designed roadmap not only helps themes but also provides transparency and clear communication about the game's progress, goals, and timeline. It helps them to stay informed about the game and what going on in the company.
Are there any best practices to consider when creating a game development roadmap?
Yes, there are some good practices when designing a roadmap, these includes:
How can a game development roadmap help in project planning?
A game development roadmap provides a timeline of tasks and milestones. Outlines the development process, from idea to launch. It tells developers what to do next and keeps them on the path. It also ensures effective team collaboration.
What tools or software can be used to create a game development roadmap?
There are plenty of software you can use to create a roadmap for your game, including:
- Trello
- Jira
- Asana
- Gannt chant tools
- Monday.com
- Google sheets
How often should a game development roadmap be reviewed and updated?
The game development roadmap is not permanent, it should be updated and checked regularly at the end of each phase. This could mean weekly or monthly, depending on the size of your games.
How can a game development roadmap help in identifying potential risks and challenges?
The roadmap assists you by telling you about the potential risks and hurdles by providing a detailed guide of the project's timeline and goals. This proactive approach allows for early risk assessment and mitigation strategies, reducing the likelihood of delays or unexpected issues.
How can stakeholders benefit from a well-defined game development roadmap?
Big companies have investors and a well-designed roadmap not only helps themes but also provides transparency and clear communication about the game's progress, goals, and timeline. It helps them to stay informed about the game and what going on in the company.
Are there any best practices to consider when creating a game development roadmap?
Yes, there are some good practices when designing a roadmap, these includes:
- Clearly Define Goals and Objectives
- Prioritize Tasks and Milestones
- Maintain Flexibility
- Engage the Team
- Regular Reviews
- Transparent Communication
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Hi ! I'm Maaz Ayub , a technology and gaming content writ over 2+
year of professional experience in content writing. |
