online-game

There’s no doubt that gaming is big business. It’s estimated that there are approaching 2.5 billion of the world’s population who play games and more and more of them are choosing to play those games online.

There’s not just a huge demand for games, there’s an equally pressing requirement to train and recruit the people who can design and create them. Many of these gaming professionals have learned the skills needed at one of the many universities that specialize in the subject and their abilities are highly prized by the developers who employ them.

At the very top end of the scale, there are highly complex games that need a big team and a long development time. At the other end, there are relatively simple ones that can be created by smaller teams, or even individuals, who just need some basic coding and programming knowledge to put a new game together.

So here we’ll look at how to create a game that’s engaging and fun– one that is reasonably complex but which is no Red Dead Redemption 2. This might even be an online slots game as many of these today share many of the features of an online game including video elements, characters, and a theme that can feature anything from lucky leprechauns to the treasures of Ancient Egypt.

Putting the team together

The first stage of any game development is to assemble the team who are going to bring it to life. A number of different skills and abilities are needed to create a game and these include designers, mathematicians, programmers, games testers, and a project manager who will oversee the work and make sure that everything is done on time and on budget. Later on, in the game’s development stages, it can also sometimes be necessary to bring in copywriters to create the dialogue for the characters as well as voice artists to use in the eventual game.

The idea is that the team all have complementary skills that can be used together to create a game that that’s unlike any other and which will have a unique appeal for players. In terms of the size of the team, this can range from four or five people up to hundreds for a more complex game.

Cracking the idea

Once the team is in place, it’s a question of coming up with an exciting new idea or concept for the game. To help them to do this, market research has been done to see where there may be gaps in the market or demand for a particular kind of game. 

It’s likely that the team will come up with a number of different ideas for games and gradually whittle down the selection until there’s one clear winner. Potential games might be eliminated because they’ll be too complicated or expensive to develop and sometimes also because they are too close in subject matter to an existing game.

An area of game development where there is a huge amount of fresh ideas and creativity is in online slots games. As part of the competitive online gambling industry, developers need to have the best and most engaging games to prevent their customers from playing on other sites.

A good example to look at for inspiration is the 888online, here you’ll find a diverse and excellent range of different games to choose from, including classic and themed online slots games featuring characters from popular culture in their amazing collection of slots.

Character development 

As soon as the overall theme and objective of the game have been agreed, it’s time to create the characters who will feature in it. Even simple games like the insanely popular Candy Crush Saga have a range of characters, so they still need a development stage. As well as their personalities that need to be clearly defined, their visual style must be too. This means that the team members most closely involved in this stage are the so-called “creatives” who will develop and refine the characters as the game is gradually constructed and improved.

Storyboarding

storyboarding

Storyboarding is a crucial part of the game development process, helping developers to get an accurate overview of the way the game will play out.

Alongside the character development, there’s also the process of storyboarding. This is something that you’ll also find used everywhere from making TV ads to feature films. As the name suggests, it involves sketching out key moments in the progress of the game’s story to show how it moves on as players pass through the different stages of action. It’s only when the full storyboard has been completed and laid out that it’s really possible to get a full overview of the game.

Bringing everything to life

We’re gradually edging towards seeing the game come to life. At this stage, it’s when the programmers and developers really start to come into their own. Generally working with wire-frame representations of the characters, the motion and interaction between them and the scenes in the game are coded and start to really take shape. When everything has been coded and put together, it’s time to convert the wireframes to the finished rendering and animation for a beta version of the game. It’s now ready for the next stage – testing.

Putting it all to the test

The first real proof of how successful and popular a game will be is at this stage – the testing stage. Testers who are part of the team will initially try the game out, looking for any bugs that might need to be fixed. Then actual players might be invited to try the game out. Their feedback will then be used to modify the game and address any other issues that might have come to light. This helps to iron out any problems developers may have overlooked and ensured the game’s audience find it as exciting and engaging as they should. 

Testing is especially important for online games because, unlike console games designed to be played on just one device, these can be played on everything from PCs to desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This means it’s important to try the game out on as many of these different variants as possible to make sure a gamer has the best experience on every individual device.

At this stage, the game is almost good to go. Now it’s just a question of fine-tuning to make sure that everything that’s been learned from the testing stage is put into practice to make the game as good as it can possibly be.

Summary

Of course, none of this guarantees that the game is going to be popular. But if every stage has been painstakingly carried out, it should spell out good prospects for it. And then, for the game developers, it’s on to the next challenge – to create an even more successful follow-up!

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