At present, the manufacturer of developing mobile games is like a spring bamboo shoots, there is a small, or even a few friends can have a small company to develop. Each company has the development process of "with its own characteristics", a good, direct set of traditional software engineering theory, and only some of them are suffering. I would like to talk about a highly efficient development method and phase of the small team to develop games.
The stage of game development is divided, I think it can be divided into 5 phases, and the description is as follows:
The first stage: proposal
The main job to do this is to clear what kind of game, what is the name of the game, what behaves in the way (2D, 2.5D, 3D, etc.), the game's selling point (characteristics), what is the realization? On the platform, the personnel look for.
Whether it is a company or a small team to play the game, it is for profit, so as a game designer should design the game for the market, but can not design games for personal preferences. The game that can be accepted by most people is a good game to better profit. So before deciding what game, you must first determine what kind of players who are mainly for this game. It is a boy or a girl. It is a young man who is still in 20 years. This goal has been a better to tide this class. The player's psychology makes the game more fully satisfying such players' psychology and mental demand, so that the game can be accepted by more players, the team can better profit.
According to the selected player group, it is also very important to choose the game theme of this player group. A good theme will help the designer's characteristics of the game, so that the player quickly understands the game background The game can be easy to get started, and better by the player. There are three major types of game themes to be readily being accepted by players: 1 Releases historical or religious history or religion in the area; 2 is related to common sense; 3 is related to a famous story or movie. In short, playing games on the topics familiar with most players in the selected players will be more easily played.
Then is the design of the game concept, it is necessary to determine the type of game (for example: rpg, strategy, fight, etc.), the game's performance (for example: 2D, 2.5D or 3D), what platform is implemented on what platform and game features . These issues should be determined according to the team's technical strength, the urgency of market demand, and development costs. After determining the type, expression and implementation platform of the game, we will play as much as possible under the limitations of these three conditions, as much as possible on the game characteristics, and write two documents. : Outline of a game planning case and a project proposal. In the planning book, let skilled people can see what functions need to make. In the project, you should write a copy of the game, the game type, game expression, game implementation platform, game selling point, and realize the approximate time required for the game, and staff arrangements.
After completion, the market, technology, and other personnel will conduct collective reviews. According to this project, objective evaluation technology strength, development cycle, market effect, etc., ultimately decide whether to do this game.
The work objective at this stage is to determine that a game that will be widely accepted by the market and ensure the feasibility of the game. A game design that cannot be accepted by the market or unable to implement will be denied at this stage, or do design modifications or give up do this game. Decrease the risks of the project after implementation as much as possible.
Second stage: design
In the design process of the game, planning, procedures, art, market is required, and a game is good and bad. This stage has played a decisive role. Here, the work content of these responsibilities will be elaborated: Plan:
Detailed design of the game according to the proposal of the plan. For example: What kind of items, various items, characters, name, size, size, various behaviors of the game, various behaviors, attributes, maps, or scenes design, etc., you can use some simple Graphical representation. Planning should do not consider the platform's restrictions, as much as possible to create the game, and then modify the game planning according to the platform restrictions after the game is designed to achieve the feasible final plan.
program:
According to the program outline, complete the design of the physical engine, design or modify the game engine (if there is already available engine, you can save this step) and the tool development required for game development, for example: scripting parser Design, map editor design, etc. And complete the encoding, the test is passed, and there is no catastrophic bug in the program.
art:
Artists need to communicate with planning, start designing the various roles, items, scenes of the game and make original paintings based on the planned description. Artists should dominate the design of the art part of the game, not just how the workers are planning, how to do it.
market:
Market staff should communicate with the outside world, need to do two things: 1. Regularly communicate with planning, collect resources related to project development; 2. Pay attention to the market effect of similar games. Not necessarily all of the games in the game development, some places can also be done with some people, for example: on the program section, if you find the source code that you can find the basically demand online, you can take it. Change one change, this can greatly improve the development efficiency; in the art, for the elements that are not very important in the game, it can be found to be changed, which can also improve the development efficiency. Pay attention to the game of similar themes that have been released on the market, find each game's selling character and its marketing strategy, carefully analyze these games Where do these games don't do it, where is the problem? And complete a market survey report, from the perspective of the market to examine our game planning and original painting, avoid the mistakes made by the former.
In this stage of work, it is necessary to plan to be centered, four roles should often communicate collaboration to complete tasks in high quality. If the conditions allow for the plan, you should open an exemplary every day. All personnel in the project group have to participate, solve the problems encountered in the work and discuss new ideas and design.
At this stage of work goals: 1. The game engine is basically completed; 2. Standing in the perspective of the program to see the planning case, confirm this planning case is feasible; 3 stations in the player's perspective to see the plan and art design, Confirm that the design is in line with the logic of the game, the content is rich enough, the art design is enough; 4. Standing in the market, it will have some competitiveness compared to the same type of game on the market. If the game is not fun or qualified enough, it will be modified in this stage. According to the team's strength, it is finally determined that the game will reach a problem, and in the next stage, it is necessary to make a game according to such quality.
Third stage: implementation
This stage of the task is mainly to achieve games according to the plan, and this stage of work is the maximum time in the entire development cycle. There is a strong dependence between the responsibilities during the game development process, and the timing of work is very strong. If there is no development plan, the team will often appear, and the time is wasting. Therefore, all project related personnel must first open a meeting before starting working, and a detailed development plan is made in the development plan, and the four responsibilities should be quantified separately. The timing of the work should be arranged properly and try to avoid waiting. The following is elaborated separately: Plan: Plan:
The most important task in this stage is to do project management. Project management's work includes: 1 Continuously motivate developers to make teams with high morale and maintain a harmonious development atmosphere; 2 often communicate with each part of people, coordinate everyone's work every day, control development progress; 3 Arrange the daily data backup, avoid the team's efforts to force the force due to force majeure; Map of map editing, based on the plot, write game scripts, make game screenshot animation, etc.).
Planning is not only a good job of project management, it is very important to do two things: 1 With the progress of the game development, it is timely discovered that the lack of game design is, and the planning plan is changed, but the development plan will continue to continue according to the original policy. Developing games, modified planning cases are used in the next stage; 2 Write a value setting initial program and implement this plan in the game.
program:
Design game-related algorithms (such as: AI, collision, trading system, etc.) according to the plan. Do a good job version of the version control. In the initial design process, it may not be done well, but it doesn't matter. The programmer can use some similar graphics instead, wait for the art to make a picture, then replace it, so you can save a lot of time. Don't write too much technology during the development process, the main purpose of technical documentation is to facilitate the exchange of staff, and can basically have a programmer in a small team, so it is not necessary to write technical documents too cumbersome . As much as possible as much as possible is embodied in the program, so that save time and contributory reading. Programmers may think of some constructive opinions on game design, and should be discussed in time to decide whether to modify the plan.
Programmers should lead the technicians throughout the development process. In addition to writing, the US worker should be guided according to the needs of the program, guiding planning or other personnel with game development tools.
art:
According to the requirements of the art demand list of the plan, you can make a sound file according to the requirements of the Sound Table, and the posters and other propaganda products are designed according to market staff. In order to improve game quality and development efficiency, it is recommended to give the game animation and sound to professional outsourcing groups. It is accepted by art and planned personnel. This should be determined according to the team's technical strength and economic strength.
market:
Develop market propaganda planning, propose a list of promotional products that require design and production, and make up procedures and art production. Frequently communicating with planning, more understanding of game content and development development, so that when doing deciding to do publicity, how much propaganda is put into investment. If it is a competitive game in the market, you can do a Demo immediately after the game is completed, contact some customers, you can listen to the customer's opinion, from the customer's point of view, the lack of the game At, then the team meets whether to modify the plan according to the customer's opinion. Maybe there will be a customer to decide this game at this time. At this time, you will write a cooperation proposal, the contract is planned, and the cooperative relationship between customers is maintained.
The workload in this stage is the planning and program. Planning should have an overall grasp of the overall development of the entire game, and control the development progress. Programmers should dominate the technical issues, as far as possible to a large number of repetitive labor production tools, simplify the replacement and numerical adjustments of the game resource, and guide others to do this. The art should be dominated in the artistic performance of the game. There is no union at this stage, and the postgraduate work is basically completed, and it will be easy to do. At this time, it is necessary to assist planning and programmers to do something. work. Market staff do not participate in game development, the role of the team is the team's external interface, to do the promotion and sales of the game. The team opened at least once a week, and all parties summed up the work of the previous week and adjusted the work plan according to the actual situation to formulate the next week's work tasks. The problem encountered in the work can be raised at the meeting, and everyone discusses a solution.
At this stage of work goals: 1 The game BATA version is completed, and the program is required to have no fatal bug; 2 game propaganda design is completed.
The fourth stage: review
Evaluate the game, review the quality of the game, need to be modified, and consider the playability and market effects of the game again.
Consider whether it needs to be developed again to improve the quality of the game. For example: the balance of the game, whether the value setting is reasonable, whether the game map needs to be modified, do you need to add or delete some functions.
Simply, it is to further improve the playability of the game, but it should be noted that it is necessary to consider clear development cycles needed to develop again, as well as people match.
If it is confirmed to perform secondary development, the last phase of the work is repeated until the satisfactory effect is repeated according to the modification requirements.
If there is no need or does not have the conditions developed, it will enter the next stage.
Fifth stage: completed
Performing the final numerical adjustment, each adjustment needs to be tested, and strive to achieve all bugs and make product manuals and related documents. According to market demand, produce some propaganda products, as well as some surrounding products, such as Demo (this Demo is used to do market propaganda), mobile screensaver, PC screensaver, etc., and market propaganda. Product listing!
The related documents herein, including the final planning document, gaming diagram lists, and game maps, and Raiders, use instructions and other peripheral documents. The detailed design documentation of the proposed program is organized at this stage. The traditional software engineering requires the development of a detailed design document in the initial period. It is to develop large-scale projects. In large project development, multi-person need to cooperate to develop a system to determine the final solution to avoid the development of developers. Do not unify, and make projects have a catastrophic mistake. If it is a small and medium-sized project, you can integrate the detailed design document in the comment of the code (the description of the program must be written very detailed), because in the detailed design phase, it is also involved in some code, so from agile development From the perspective, you can use a detailed design document at the beginning, and in the fifth phase, detailed design documentation is organized by comments to increase development efficiency.
The above is 5 stages of the small team game development I have summed up. I propose is just a framework, not every project to be done in full, each project is flexible to determine what should be done in every stage according to the situation.
