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With phones and tablets becoming increasingly powerful and able to hold more storage, the games are becoming more complex. Flappy Bird may have only been 5mb, but more recent titles such as Tales From The Borderlands has a 1GB initial download with subsequent episodes being equally weighty.

So if you are looking into dipping your toe into app game development, you need to ask yourself some important questions in order to avoid wasting your time and money.

Who are you doing it for?

There are three reasons to develop a game; for you, for a client or for money. Doing it for yourself is the best reason to get into game development. If you have a passion for gaming and game development, then the long journey from initial concept to final release will not seem quite so hard. It’s easier to put in the long hours and tweak it to near perfection if you love what you do. If you are doing it for a client, then there is both a start and end, as well as an agreed payment schedule. This clarity helps make the process smoother and keeps you motivated throughout the build cycle. Going into game development thinking you will create the next Flappy Bird and earn millions is not a good reason to start developing games. You will need to invest a lot of time and money in the development process and without the right motivators, you can easily be discouraged and lose momentum.

When determining the cost of making an app, it can be pretty perplexing. To ease your work, there are many things you ought to factor in to determine how much it cost to make an app. Foremost, you need to know what type of app you are making. And since it’s a game app, a game app development company can provide a quotation. Creating game apps can be pretty expensive as you have to include AR support, 3D graphics, and more. But once you launch something unique, the profits will be remarkable! Secondly, what features do you want on your app? Such include navigation, push notifications, google maps integration, payment integration, user login, customization, database, streaming, and more. The more features you want on your app, the higher the cost and vice versa. You also have to factor in the cost of releasing the app. Do you want it on google play store, Apple play store, or both? If you choose google play store, you will pay 25$ once. But if you choose the Apple store, you will pay 99$ per year.

What are your strengths and what do you bring to the table?

Not everyone can do everything. Those that try, rarely do all elements to a high enough standard to make it a success. Don’t be afraid to work with others and delegate tasks to get the job done. If you are a skilled artist then concentrate on the assets and work with a developer to create the code. If your forte is in marketing, management and planning then you can hire freelancers or even dedicated app development companies to deliver the game. If you consider yourself the ‘ideas man‘ then learn a skill, as nothing annoys designers and developers than someone who offers to give them a ‘profit-share’ in return for them doing all the work, when the idea’s man simply has a concept and nothing else.

What’s your timeframe and budget?

Game development can not be done for free. This is a fact. Hardware, software, licenses, rent, travel, marketing all require money. A good developer accepts this and factors these costs into the overall budget. Money needs to be earned by a job, loaned by a bank or given by investors. Whichever route you choose, you will need to factor in this time alongside the design and development time to create a realistic timeline. Similarly, you will need to plan how your game will earn money, will it be a freemium game supported by adverts or a fixed price game. How will you keep gamers playing and sell various in-app purchases?

When determining the cost of making an app, it can be pretty perplexing. To ease your work, there are many things you ought to factor in to determine how much it cost to make an app. Foremost, you need to know what type of app you are making.

And since it’s a game app, a game app development company can provide a quotation. Creating game apps can be pretty expensive as you have to include AR support, 3D graphics, and more. But once you launch something unique, the profits will be remarkable!

Secondly, what features do you want on your app? Such include navigation, push notifications, google maps integration, payment integration, user login, customization, database, streaming, and more. The more features you want on your app, the higher the cost and vice versa.

You also have to factor in the cost of releasing the app. Do you want it on google play store, Apple play store, or both? If you choose google play store, you will pay 25$ once. But if you choose apple play store, you will pay 99$ per year.

How will it be marketed?

Marketing should start when you have something worthwhile to show. Whether it’s early concept work or a playable proof of concept. Depending on your team size, you will need to choose your channels and maintain them throughout the development process. Many developers think that marketing starts once the game is finished, however, the buzz for the game should be at fever-pitch when the release date finally arrives. Social media, gameplay videos, Twitch streamers, interviews, press releases and PPC can all be used to raise awareness of your game and increase sales.

So if you are thinking of starting on that rocky road to gaming success, then ask yourself these simple questions to make sure that this is not simply a flight of fancy, but a commitment to produce something amazing.

The post Important Questions When Venturing into App/Game Development appeared first on AppTrawler.

When the iPhone and iPod Touch were first discussed as gaming platforms, many people thought they would fail due to their lack of buttons. Of course, the gigabytes of awesome games on the App Store have proven such claims wrong. We thought we’d take a closer look at iDevice controls by chomping on a cigar Clint Eastwood-style, and looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly (in no particular order).

The Good:

Modern Combat: Sandstorm

Leave it to Gameloft, a developer that’s put oodles of high-profile games on the App Store, to get first-person shooter controls exactly right. Sure, Wolfenstein 3D was lauded as proof that an FPS could even work on the platform, but the feel of Modern Combat leaves Wolfenstein, and most other FPS titles, in the Middle Eastern dust. You have one onscreen analog stick for movement, and the rest of the screen for swiping to look around. All other FPS developers, take note.

Meteor Blitz

There’s Meteor Blitz, and then there are all other dual-stick shooters on the App Store. With the whirlwind pace this game builds up to, it needs tight controls, and Meteor Blitz does not disappoint in the least. In fact, you’ll forget that your thumbs are touching nothing but glass when wave after wave of enemies surround your ship and thrust full-throttle directly at you. You practically mind-meld with your iDevice, this game feels so natural to control. Oh, and if your thumbs come off the controls for even a nanosecond, the game pauses automatically. We think more games should do that.

Soosiz

Onscreen touch buttons get a bad rap from people who haven’t used them, and for good reason: they don’t seem like they would work. Any Super Mario Brothers fan could tell you how important it is to have your thumbs on physical buttons when playing a twitch-reaction side-scrolling platformer. And to be honest, it’s not like we haven’t struggled: We can’t tell you how many times we accidentally butt-stomped in Castle of Magic because our thumb slid to the down arrow mid-jump. But Soosiz pares down the controls to the bare necessities, and they feel just as good as an NES controller. Every time we died in this game, it was because we miscalculated. We have no other excuse. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

The controls in Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor might make you think the system was made for the game rather than the other way around. There’s no onscreen D-pad, no touch buttons, no user interface at all. There’s only touch. Touch the screen, and the spider moves to exactly where you want him to go. Swipe, and he launches into the air, following the exact arc of your finger. Throw in character animation that looks eerily like the locomotion of a real spider, and you’ve got a game that feels as good as it looks.

Harbor Master

We all know that Flight Control is the original line-drawing game, and a perfect fit for the platform. But Harbor Master’s take on the genre offers many additions and improvements, including better controls. When you draw a line from a ship to a dock, the route clicks into place every time. Flight Control takes a little more finesse, a more exact path to the runway. This makes Harbor Master much more accessible than its predecessor, and even harder to put down.

The Bad:

Duke Nukem 3D

This game is a nightmare to control. The analog control option was completely useless when the game launched, and even after the update it’s still hardly up to snuff. We had to fiddle with the digital controls for the better part of an hour before we finally pieced together something we could play the game with.

And while we’re at it, let us lodge a complaint about infinitely customizable controls in general. In Duke Nukem (and Wolfenstein 3D) you can literally drag every button anywhere on the screen you want. This is great in theory but overwhelming in practice. Developers should give us a workable control scheme right out of the gate. We’re not programmers, and we don’t want to have to customize every little piece of the user interface in order to play the game. All we want to do is dive in as quickly as possible. Let us.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

At first glance, the point-and-click adventure genre would seem like an ideal match for the iDevice, as you can tap anywhere on the screen without needing to drag a cursor around. In the Secret of Monkey Island, however, the developers decided to keep the cursor. This made gameplay feel awkward and unintuitive, creating a barrier between players and an otherwise brilliant game. The developers of the recent port of Beneath a Steel Sky learned from this mistake and employed a system in which clickable objects are highlighted as you drag your finger near them. It works great, and we wish Monkey Island would be updated to follow suit.

Aves

While the immersive audio may be the intended star of the show, the controls steal the experience and drive it into the ground. You’re supposed to tip and tilt your iDevice to aim your bow and arrow at a mythical bird that flies around your character. The problem is that the inept use of the accelerometer controls make this feat nearly impossible to accomplish. So impossible, in fact, that the developers have offered ,500 to anyone who records a video of themselves beating level 25. We’d rather pass on the money and save our valuable time.

Lumines – Touch Fusion

Puzzle games are a dime a dozen on the App Store, and for good reason: they’re perfect for short-burst gaming, and touch controls work magnificently for most of them. Enter Lumines to screw it all up. This is a Tetris-like game in which precision is of utmost importance. Unfortunately, precision is the last thing you get when dragging the blocks around. This goes to show that porting a game to the iDevice takes time, care, and an acknowledgement of the strengths and limitations of the hardware. The developer of Lumines has ignored all of these points, and the result is a nearly unplayable game.

The Ugly:

Enviro-Bear 2010

Nothing about the controls of Enviro-Bear feels right. Many have posited that that’s the point. Either way, nobody should pay money for this madman’s fever dream of a game. Sorry, Enviro Bear. You’re still awful.

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