We've hired a team of interns to create a mobile game in 12 weeks. They have set out to keep a dev log of their experience, here is their first update:
Mobile Game Development Experience (Goal: 12 Weeks and 100K Download)
How difficult would it be to create a game with 100K downloads on mobile platforms? When we started to think about the required steps for a game (scripts/coding, characters, technical/mechanical features, environment design, UI/UX designs, and launching/marketing) we thought that we should share the difficult development steps with everyone; especially the people who say, “Let’s build a game on mobile because it’s easy to make money there”. Here is the first part of the story ‘How to develop a unique and free game on mobile platforms in 12 weeks’…
We are 9 people who had limited experience working with each other, if any at all. 9 people who came together to develop a game from scratch. The goal is to develop a game that is well-designed and unique. Of course this is not a claim that we will create the next Pokemon Go or a super art game like Monument Valley. Our main goal is that we develop each stage from scratch so we can keep our game exclusive to our vision. By the end of 12 weeks, we will launch a game for IOS and Android that will not only be free to download, but free from ads and microtransactions. We are developing this game as a volunteer team, each working 5–10 hours a week.
In this story, we will share what we learn over the course of 12 weeks. Our resources and works are open-source. We intend for our experience to be a useful resource for developers who have a plan to begin production on a mobile game.
What we share in these stories:
- Game ideas
- Concept documents
- Open-source design and software files
- Project management methods
- Marketing plans
- Meeting notes
- Weekly tasks
- Network opportunity with a game development team, based in Austin
Week 1: Building a Team and Game Ideas
Astire recruited a group of 6 people as Interns. Each applied for specific positions, or even multiple positions. Team roles are: Producer / Designer, Environment Artist / World Builder, Scripter, Character Artist, UI-UX Designer (Here’s the detail information for job roles)
In order for 6 interns and 3 directors who had little experience working with each other to communicate they would need various tools to help them along the way. To keep time management and communication operating at full force we use these tools: Slack for communication, Trello for project management. We’ve been developing the game on Unity and have been using SVN services to track each other’s work.
So what kind of game will we develop?
We created a brainstorming form to gather ideas before the meeting and we did a quick brainstorming at the first meeting. We collected ideas under 3 topics in order to get everyone’s opinion without a filter and not interfere with each other during the idea stage. (Mechanic, Environment, Character)
A picture from brainstorming for game ideas — and final ideas
Then we created different scenarios with these collected ideas. We finalized the results by talking together and got the 3 concept games:
- Dragon With Hats
- Nanobots
- Sly Fox
After the meeting, we created a concept document to talk about the general designs and contents.
Decision Time
We have 2 meetings per week. There we can work together, sharing problems, ideas, etc., and get some evaluation with supervisors. During the last meeting of the first week, we evaluated the games with supervisors and decided to build Sly Fox. (Probably, the name and content will pivot in the future
