The stage division of small Team game development

At present, the development of mobile phone game manufacturers like springing up, there are big and small, even a few friends together can save a small company, for development. Each company, also has its own characteristics of the development process, better, directly to apply the traditional theory of software engineering, poor, and can only work hard. What I want to talk about here is an efficient development method and phase Division for small team development games.

The stage division of Game Development, which I think can be divided into 5 stages, is described as follows:


Phase I: Proposals


This stage is to do the main task is to make clear what kind of game, the name of the game, what kind of performance (2d,2.5d,3d, etc.), the game's selling points (features), the implementation of what platform, how the personnel collocation.


Whether it is a company or a small team to do the ultimate goal of the game is to make money, so as a game designer should be designed for the market to design games, but not personal preferences and design games. Most people can accept the game is a good game, in order to better profitability. So decide what game to play before deciding what kind of player to play. is a boy or a girl, is a young man or a more than 20-year-old, this goal is established to better explore the psychology of such players, so that the design of the game more fully meet the psychological and spiritual needs of such players, So that the game can be more players to accept, the team can be better profit.


According to the selected group of players, it is appropriate to choose the game theme for this group, a game theme selection is also very important, a good theme to help designers to show the characteristics of the game, so that players quickly understand the background of the game, the game can be easy to get started, better accepted by the players. There are three main types of game topics that are more easily accepted by players: the history or religion that is known to 1 of the published area; 2 is related to common sense; 3 is related to a famous story or movie. In short, games are more easily accepted in subjects that are familiar to most players in the selected player group.


Then there is the concept of the game design, you need to determine the type of game (such as: RPG, strategy, fighting, etc.), the performance of the game (such as: 2D, 2.5D or 3D), on what platform to implement and the characteristics of the game. These problems should be based on the team's technical strength, the urgency of market demand, development costs and other factors to determine. After the definition of the type, performance and implementation of the platform, it is necessary under these three conditions to play as far as possible the planning of creativity, in the game features as much effort as possible, and write two documents: a game planning case outline and a project proposal. In the outline of the plan to let the technical staff to see how the game needs to have what kind of function. In the project proposal to write clear the game for the crowd, the type of game, the performance of the game, the game to achieve the platform, the game selling points, to achieve the approximate time required, as well as staff arrangements.


After the collection of market, technology, art and other personnel for collective review, according to the proposal, objective evaluation of technical strength, development cycle, market effects and other issues, the final decision whether to do this game.


The goal at this stage is to determine what is going to be a game that is widely accepted in the marketplace and to make sure the game is viable. A game that cannot be accepted by the marketplace or that cannot be achieved at all will be denied at this stage, or designed to be modified or given up to do the game. Minimize the risk that the project will take after it has been implemented.


Phase II: Design


The game design process needs planning, procedures, art, the market to work together to complete, a game to do good or bad, this stage played a decisive role, the following will be the work of the four responsibilities of the content of the description:


Planning:


The detailed design of the game according to the outline of the plan case. For example: With what props, a variety of objects, the role of the name, the game diagram size, size, the characters of various behaviors, attributes, maps or scenes of the design, you can use a specific game diagram, with some simple graphical representation can be. Planning should not take into account the limitations of the platform, as far as possible to play the creativity to design the game, when the game is designed and then according to the limitations of the platform to modify the game planning to achieve the final planning of the feasibility of the case.


Program:


According to the outline of the plan, complete the design of the physical engine, design or modify the game engine for game type and game performance (if there are already available engines, you can omit this step) and the tools needed for game development, such as: the design of the script parser, the design of the map editor, etc. and complete the code, test pass, the program is not a catastrophic bug.


Art:


The artist needs to communicate with the plan often, according to the description of the plan, start to design the various characters, objects, scene prototypes and make the original painting design. The art staff should play a leading role in the design of the art part of the game, not just as the workers plan how to say it.


Market:


Market personnel to communicate with the outside world, need to do two things: 1. Regular communication with the planning, collection of resources related to project development; 2. Focus on the market effects of similar games. Not all parts of the game development have to be developed by themselves, some places can also be done with some other things, such as: In the program section, if you can find the basic content to meet the requirements of the source code, can be brought over to change, so that can greatly improve the efficiency of development; in art, For the game is not very important elements can find some others do a good map to change, this can also improve development efficiency. Focus on the market has published a similar theme of the game, to find the characteristics of each game and its marketing strategy, careful analysis of these games where to do well where do not good, the problem is where. and complete a market research report, from the market point of view of our game planning and original painting design, as far as possible to avoid the mistakes made by predecessors.


In this stage of work, to be planning as the center, four kinds of roles to regular communication and collaboration in order to complete the task of high quality. If the conditions permit, a daily meeting should be held by the planner, and all personnel in the project team will be involved to solve the problems encountered in the work and to discuss and evaluate the new ideas and design.


The goal of this phase: 1. The basic production of the game engine is completed; 2. From the point of view of the program to see the planning case, confirm that the plan is feasible; 3 from the point of view of the player to see the planning and art design, to confirm the design of the game in line with the logic of thinking, content rich enough, fine art design fine enough; 4. From the market point of view, compared with the same type of game in the market To have a certain degree of competitiveness. If the game is not fun or quality is not enough at this stage will be modified to improve, according to the strength of the team to finally determine what the game to achieve a quality, in the next stage to be based on such quality to make the game.


Phase III: achieving


This phase of the task is mainly based on the plan to achieve the game, this phase of the workload is the entire development cycle the maximum time is the most difficult to control. In the game development process there is a strong dependence between the responsibilities, the timing of the work is very strong, if not a good development plan, the team will often appear in the work of the phenomenon, waste time. Therefore, before the beginning of the work of all the project related personnel to open a meeting, the day to do a detailed development plan, in the development plan to the four kinds of responsibilities to quantify the work content respectively. The timing of the work should be arranged properly, so as to avoid the occurrence of the phenomenon. The following work on these four responsibilities is described separately:


Planning:


At this stage the most important task is to do project management well. The work of Project management includes: 1 constantly motivate the development staff, so that the team has a high morale and maintain a harmonious development atmosphere; 2 regular communication with the staff, coordinate the work of each person every day, control the progress of development; 3 schedule daily data backup, as far as possible to avoid the team's efforts due to force majeure and in vain 4 Strictly review the pictures and sound produced by the art staff to ensure the quality of the game requirements; 5 assist other team members to do some practical work (such as Map Editor map, play script according to plot, make game screen animation, etc.).


Planning not only to do a good project management but also to do two very important things: 1 with the development of the game constantly review the game, timely detection of game design deficiencies, modify the planning case but do not change the development plan will continue to develop the game in accordance with the original planning case, the revised plan for the next stage 2 to write a numerical setup preliminary scheme and implement this scheme in the game.


Program:


According to the planning case, design game related algorithms (such as: AI, collision, trading system, etc.). Do a good game version control. In the initial design process may be the art of the picture has not been done, but it does not matter, programmers can use a number of similar graphics instead, such as art to make a map and then replace it, this can save a lot of time. Do not write too many technical questions in the development process, the main purpose of technical documents is to facilitate the exchange of developers, in a small team each project is basically a programmer, so there is no need to write technical documents too cumbersome. As far as possible, the technical documentation as a note in the program, so that both save time and facilitate the reading of the program. Programmers in the development process may think of some of the game design constructive comments, then should be timely and planning discussions, decide whether to modify the planning case.


Throughout the development process, programmers should play a leading role in technology, in addition to writing a good program should also guide the art in accordance with the needs of the program to do drawings, guide planning or other personnel with game development tools.


Art:


According to the requirements of the art demand list of the plan to do drawings and animation, according to the voice of the requirements of the general table to make sound files, according to the requirements of the market personnel design posters and other promotional materials. In order to improve the quality of the game and development efficiency, it is recommended that the game animation and sound to the professional outsourcing team to do, by the art and planning personnel acceptance, this should be based on the team's technical strength and economic strength to decide.


Market:


Develop marketing planning, put forward the need to design the production of the list of promotional materials, submitted to the process and art production. Regular communication with the planning, more understanding of the game content and the development of the game, so as to decide when to start publicity, how much publicity effort. If it is a competitive game in the market, when the game completes the Alpha version can immediately do a demo, contact some customers to see, this time can listen to the customer's opinion, from the customer's point of view of the game's deficiencies, and then the team meeting to decide whether or not according to the customer's comments modify the plan case. Maybe this time there will be a customer decided to book the game, this time to write cooperation proposals, contract draft, and maintain a good relationship with customers.


The most significant workload in this phase of the work is planning and procedures. Planning should have a overall grasp of the whole game development, control the development progress. Programmers play a leading role in solving technical problems, simplifying the replacement and numerical adjustment of game resources as much as possible, and directing others to do the work. Art should play a leading role in the artistic performance of the game, at the beginning of this stage did not trade unions are busy, to the later picture basically finished the work of art patronagejob down, and then to assist planning and programmers to do some work. The market personnel does not participate in the game development, holds the role is the team to the external interface, must do the game propaganda and the sale work.


The team meets at least once a week, at which the staff summarizes the work of the previous week, adjusts the work plan to the actual situation, and makes the next week's assignment. Problems encountered in the work can be raised at the meeting, we discuss the solution together.


This phase of the work goal: 1 game Bata version completed, the requirements of the program is not fatal BUG;2 game propaganda design completed.


Phase IV: Review


To review the game, audit the quality of the game, whether the need to modify, to reconsider the game's gameplay and market effects.


Consider whether you need to develop again to improve the quality of the game. For example: the balance of the game, the numerical setting is reasonable, game diagram whether need to modify, whether need to add or subtract certain functions.


In short, it is to further improve the gameplay, but it should be noted that you need to consider clearly the development cycle required for redevelopment, as well as the personnel mix.


If two development is confirmed, repeat the last stage of work to the desired effect, as required by the modification.


If you do not need or do not have the conditions to develop again, go to the next stage.


Phase Fifth: Completion


The final numerical adjustment, each adjustment needs to be tested, and strive to achieve the elimination of all bugs, while the production of product manuals and related documents. According to the market demand, make some promotional items, as well as some peripheral products, such as demo (this demo is for marketing purposes), mobile screensavers, PC screensavers, etc., and market promotion. Products listed.


Here are the relevant documents, including the final planning documents, game diagrams and game diagrams, as well as the introduction, the use of the surrounding documents such as manuals. The detailed design document for the proposed program is collated at this stage. The traditional software engineering requires the early writing of detailed design documents, is to develop large projects, because in large project development, many people need to collaborate to develop a system to identify the final solution to avoid catastrophic errors in the project due to the lack of uniformity in the thinking of the developers. If you are a small or medium project, you can fully integrate the detailed design document into the code's comments (requiring that the program's annotations be written in great detail), because in the detailed design phase, but also involved in the preparation of some of the code, so from the perspective of agile development, you can not write a detailed design document in the beginning, and in the fifth phase, Through annotations, the detailed design documents are sorted out to improve the development efficiency.


These are the 5 stages of small team game development that I have summed up. What I'm proposing is a framework, not every project has to be done exactly as it is, and each project has to be flexible about what each phase should do according to the situation.