Mobile Game Development: Tools, Trends, & Best Practices

From the time when we used to play mobile games with pixelated graphics, negligible interactions, and a very simple playing mechanism, the mobile gaming industry has evolved to powerful, high-end games with superior-quality visual effects, carefully chosen interactions, outstanding storylines, marvelous storylines, and a relatively more complex game mechanics.

This transformation is caused due to the constant enhancement in the gaming industry and the emergence of technologies used for mobile game development. Currently, there are millions of games available and being played by millions of gamers across the world. And the count is growing each passing day owing to development and deployment ease. Though, it is making the gaming industry highly competitive where developing a successful and profitable mobile game has become a daunting task for mobile game developers.

But there are popular names you can rely on for your mobile game development project. PuzzleInnovationz is one of these leading companies you can consider and get a product that will surely be successful and loved by the global audience. The reason behind the Company doesn’t forget to follow key characteristics to develop a highly successful mobile game.

Key Elements To Consider While Building A Truly Successful Mobile Game Application

Well, the parameters to determine the success of a mobile game may differ from one game to another. However, considering these three standards as ideal one can assure the success of a mobile game to a greater extent. These are:

• User Acquisition: The mobile game should be capable of capturing the attention of the target audience.
• User Engagement: It should be capable of engaging the user and entertaining for a long period of time.
• User Retention: The mobile game should have the capability of retaining the user device forever.

any mobile game development Company can attain the above-mentioned goals just by following these five key characteristics which confirm the success of a mobile game.

Key Characteristics of Mobile Game Development

Simplicity

It is one of the factors that ensure the success of a mobile game you are going to develop. If the users find your mobile game simple, short and with an intuitive learning curve. It will be easier for them to understand and learn how to play the game at the beginning. This makes them move further with more complex issues and tasks. So it is necessary to keep the initial steps of the mobile game easy to understand and follow the same.

Design

The first and foremost thing users interact with your game is its design. So, it must be Intriguing with amazing UI and UX. And you should not hold yourself from spending a good amount to create such a user interface. From storyline to the character of the game that drives the game should be unique enough to differentiate it with the other games available in the market. With the current technologies available, one can easily create minimal UI or a comic style theme on the designing front.

Continuity

The aspect of continuity plays a vital role in terms of making a mobile game successful. Here continuity can be understood as the user engagement and introduction of regular updates. While continuous user engagement to a game can only be attained with a compelling storyline. Because it is the only factor that keeps users stick to the game and playing it every day. In addition to this, if you want to retain users to the game you must be focused on making changes to the game as an addition of new features, content, characters or level by releasing new updates and extensions.

Urgency

If your mobile game is capable of creating a sense of urgency in users there are huge chances the mobile game you are going to develop will be highly successful. You can do so by offering a bunch of new challenges and rewards on a regular basis. Since rewarding moments make the users come back to the game and they don’t feel bored playing the game for a long time.

Performance

To make a mobile game successful, its performance should be on top-notch. And it can only be attained if the mobile game will be fast and lightweight, take less RAM used on the user’s device and execute immediately with just a single tap on the icon. So these are a few points needs to keep in mind considering mobile game performance during the time of its development.

Besides all, if you want to develop a great game and don’t want to risk its success. The best approach is to keep up with the latest technological trends and technologies so that your mobile game sees a great height in the gaming industry.

Best Mobile Game Development Trends

Let’s have a look at the top mobile game development trends gaining popularity in the gaming industry.

Increased Use of AR and VR Technology

With games like Pokemon Go, we have already witnessed the use of AR technology in the mobile game industry. And in the coming future, we can see the extended use of VR (Virtual Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality) in the mainstream industry with the Machines, Ingress and others. However, there are games that are in the development phase mostly using VR technology.

Source: Statista

Beginning of Wearable Gaming

With time, wearable gaming devices are getting evolved. And there are huge chances we can observe the introduction of AR and VR technologies from mobile game developers. So that the users can get a quick to play, fully immersive gaming experience. However, the mobile game devices will continue to be in high demand due to their large screen gaming experience. But the wearable devices will also succeed in making a separate fan base in the coming future.

Increased Demand for Cloud-based Games

The biggest USP of the cloud-based games is that they can be played without even downloading or installing its application. This feature of the cloud-games is attracting the game companies and freelance mobile game developers towards its development besides being a fresh concept in the market. The introduction of gaming services like PlayKey, GeForce, and LiquidSky are taking the trend of cloud games to a whole new level.

Cross-Platform Gaming

Like cross-platform applications that allow users to access them on different devices and platforms. The demand for cross-platform gaming is increasing with each passing day. Because, it lets users play games on different devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. Due to this reason, the trend for cross-platform gaming is expected to grow in the coming future and will also boost the career of mobile video game developers.

Mobile Game For All Age Groups

The time has gone when games were meant for kids and youngsters. Nowadays, companies are focused on building mobile games ready to serve almost all the age groups from adolescents, elderly people, grown-up youths, sensible ladies, and even disabled people. We have witnessed the launch of such hundreds of games meant for all age groups during the last year. And expect to see growth in numbers of such games in the coming year.

Personalization and Customization

To ascertain the interactivity and engagement of a mobile game, these two factors: personalization and customization play a vital role. However, these two share a basic difference. The customization provides all the controls in the hands of users while with the personalization the whole control remains to the application. Well, it is not the new trend in the market though it will continue to see a rise in the coming years as well.

Multipurpose Mobile Games

In the current era, mobile games have become an integral part of everyone’s day to day life. This boosts the development of more and more games covering different aspects of daily life likewise, education, learning, lifestyle, health and more. The major objective behind the development of such multipurpose games is to educate and learn new things to the users. Already there are several such multipurpose games available in the gaming industry and the count is expected to grow in the coming years.

Multiplayer/Social Games

In the last few years, an increase is observed in the development of multiplayer mobile games due to internet availability across the world and the increased number of users on social media platforms. However, there are games that can also be played locally without any internet. Instead of the internet, such games use WI-FI, Bluetooth, infrared and similar other technology. This trend will surely make its way to upcoming because social media users are growing each passing day.

Location-based Mobile Games

Location-based mobile games are those which make use of localization technology like GPS or satellite positioning. Such mobile games use information like where you are, your exact location and movements as key components, unlike other mobile games. We will continue to see growth in this technology trend this year and the future ones.
Every day almost a million games launched in the gaming industry. However, a few of them only manage to stay on the users’ device for a long time. Now you must be thinking of what makes these mobile games stand firm in this highly competitive gaming industry? So there are a few best practices that make the mobile game insanely lucrative and truly successful.

Mobile Game Development Best Practices

Come Up With a Unique Game Dev Idea

If you want to develop a successful mobile game, you must have an original idea. So do thorough market research and come up with an innovative idea that can easily engage users to a great extent. If you succeed in finding a unique great idea, you have traversed half of the journey of developing a successful mobile game. So always focus on finding an original idea.

Create a Game Design Document

After finding a distinct game idea, it is necessary to create a game design document for your idea. This document will be descriptive and cover every single aspect of the game design. It is created and edited with the joint efforts of designers and developers. With the help of this GDD, you can easily get feedback from the others and develop the game in the best possible way.

Create Amazing UI/UX

If you want to make an engaging and successful mobile game, it should have an amazing user interface and seamless user experience. Other than this, if the game possesses too many complicated controls, you should focus on creating a set of tutorials so that users can easily understand the use of all the controls. Also, the design elements of the game should be lightweight as much as possible to provide users with flawless and fast user experience.

Prefer Cross-Platform Mobile Game Development

Choose to develop mobile games that can be accessed on almost all the popular operating systems likewise Android, iOS, and Windows. Since it will not only save your valuable time but also will reduce the consumption of efforts and money. Currently, there are several mobile game development tools available in the market you can use to develop and deploy them on multiple platforms. Make the best use of these tools and develop a platform-independent mobile game.

Include Social Media Features

Social media is one of the platforms used nowadays for gaining traffic. You can use it for your mobile game to drive a lot of engagement and word of mouth publicity. So don’t forget to include social media features like login, invites/referrals, in-game chatting or calls, status updates, etc at the time of mobile game development.

Perform Rigorous Game Testing

Rigorous testing of mobile games before its release plays a vital role in its success in the market. So once the first playable version of the game became available, ask beta testers to perform rigorous testing to find bugs, glitches, and fixes. This will help in eliminating major game errors and improve performance based on the feedback from beta testers and users. Rigorous game testing in both the alpha and beta phases will make sure its perfection and success in the market.

Best Mobile Game Development Tools

There are numerous mobile game development tools available in the market. But choosing the right one based on your project requirement will not only speed up the development process but also will simplify its development for mobile game developers. So let’s have a look at the most preferred mobile game developments:

Unity

Unity is a cross-platform mobile game development engine developed by Unity Technologies. It lets you develop top-notch quality 2D and 3D games for platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, and 24 other platforms. Using this tool, Unity game developers can write code for three programming languages like Boo, C#, and UnityScript. It is available to purchase in three packages- Personal, Plus, and Pro.

Lumberyard

Lumberyard is a fully customizable cross-platform mobile game development tool developed by Amazon. It comes packed with several tools that let mobile game developers build AAA quality games most easily and quickly. Also, the developers can use Amazon web services to develop or host their multiplayer games on Amazon’s powerful cloud servers- the best among features of Lumberyard.

Corona SDK

Corona SDK is a lightweight cross-platform game development tool developed by Corona Labs. Using this framework, mobile game developers can build high-quality 2D for all major platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, and others. It is easy to learn and free to use software for individual developers or a mobile game development Company.

AppGameKit

AppGameKit is an easy to use mobile game development tool developed considering the newbie developers in mind. The framework works on the concept of write once and deploys everywhere, which allows quick creation of code for platforms like Windows, Mac, and Linux. Further, this code can be exported to run on Android, iOS and Windows devices. Using this tool, you can easily develop and run your game in a short time, no matter if you are a beginner or a professional developer.

Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 4 is one of the most popular and widely used game development engines in the global market. In 2014, it won the title of the most successful video game engine’ from the Guinness World Records. It uses C++ as its programming language and comes packed with a host of unique features like Advanced AI, VFX and Particle Systems. It can also be used to create amazing AR, VR, and XR (Extended Reality) experiences. If you are willing to develop a 3D game, Unreal Engine 4 is an ideal choice.

Conclusion

The time when the gaming industry has been revolutionized to a whole new level. It is difficult to develop a mobile game that can stand out on your expectations and earn huge revenue for your Company. However, it is not impossible but there are several aspects that are required to be considered before the game development for mobile. The trends, tools and the best practices to adopt. This is a complete guide for developing an insanely lucrative and truly successful mobile game.

Other than this, you can hire individual mobile game developers or mobile game development companies for your game development project. PuzzleInnovationz is one of the leading game development companies you can consider. The Company ensures the delivery of a successful mobile game within budget pricing. Thanks to its team of highly skilled and experienced mobile game developers.

Hemendra Singh

My name is Hemendra Singh. I am Managing Director and co-founder of PuzzleInnovationz, a Mobile App Development Company. I am having a keen interest in the latest trends and technologies that are emerging in different domains. Being an entrepreneur in the field of IT sector, it becomes my responsibility to aid my audience with the knowledge of latest trends in the market.