Different Stages of Video Game Development

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  • By Ranjit Singh
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  • clock 6 minutes MIN READ
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  • calendar Updated: June 9, 2020

Video game development is generally a systematically set up project. It starts with the gathering of expert gaming artists, coding & programming specialists, marketers, game developers, and proceeds throughout different stages including high conceptualization, pitching, outlining the game development, game design documents, prototype, and production. These stages are very crucial with the perspective of developing an on-demand high definition video game as these all prepare the base of the game development. Before discussing all six stages of video game development, we would discuss game development and game design as separate units. Mostly, people make mistakes considering both game development and game design the same thing. However, it is not so. Both are separate things.

Game Development and Game Design As Separate Units

Game development is a whole process of developing a game. All development stages and all development processes are a part of the game development. The game design also comes under this, still a separate unit. In simple words, game development is a process of developing a game through conceptualizing, programming, coding, rendering, recording, mixing, producing, and testing. The game design generally deals with conceptual units. The initial vision of game development comes from conceptualizing and it’s a part of the game designing. The game designers mainly deal with the aesthetic part of the game, mechanism, core concept, characters, graphics, levels, and narration. But in the real sense, these come under the game development. Game developers or game studios bring game design ideas to life by developing an outstanding on-demand feature-reach gaming app. Simply, game development takes gaming design from concepts to reality. So, it’s true that both game design and game development are separate units. Game development typically includes coding, programming, engineering, rendering, and testing of the game including all of its elements such as characters, sounds, levels, and other elements. While game design covers the conceptual side of the game.

Six Different Game Development Stages

Like any task, for instance, building a home is completed in different stages. It includes founding a base, establishing pillars, building walls, building roof, and plastering walls, the same way game development proceeds and is completed in six different stages. These stages ensure the development of an outstanding desired gaming app. Let’s discuss further the game development stages.

High Conceptualization

This is the first and major step where actually the idea of developing a game comes out. Generally, in this step, the idea or concept of game development comes out in the form of a general idea or a brief description. Here the game developers try to distill the concept or idea to a gaming story by discussing with their team members. They weigh the video gaming concept as per the latest gaming trends, gamers’ interests, gamers’ behavior, market values, scope, the potential of performance, etc. If they find the potential of performance in the gaming concept then they start to plan and design the game. In a case, they consider that the gaming concept needs some improvisation then they make changes as per the needs and goals. On the other hand, if they consider the gaming concept useless or out of the trend, they do not go ahead with that.

Pitching

It is not that pitching where game developers and game studious pitch their final product to investors, press, and publishers. This pitching is an initial stage of game development where the gaming idea or concept forms in a summarized manner. Generally, game developers create a gaming story based on the general gaming concept. In this stage, the whole picture of game development comes out. The game developers finalize the concept and gaming story. This is a very crucial stage as it prepares the base and the whole story of a gaming product. If any mistake takes place in this stage, it can ruin the further development processes. Therefore, this development stage should carefully proceed.

Outlining the Game Development

As the name suggests, this is the stage where game developers outline the whole game. On the basis of the finalized gaming concept, the game developers prepare a blueprint for the game. This is also a very crucial stage. A single mistake in this stage can cause the failure of the game development. Therefore, everything should be done in this stage according to the finalized gaming concept. Here, the developers actually outline or describe all the gaming aspects such as movable characters, immovable characters, sounds, levels, actions, incidents, and the whole story.

Game Design Document

It is abbreviated as GDD. Generally, it is a highly descriptive living document that helps every game developer to easily understand the greater vision of the gaming project. The game developers create a game design document. It contains descriptive content on the gaming idea or concept, genre, story & characters, core game mechanics, gameplay, levels, and monetization strategies. Apart from these things, there could be more in this living document, it depends on the nature of the game. As a living document, GDD is updated and refined on a regular basis throughout the whole game development process. This document is very crucial as it guides the game developers throughout the whole development process.

Prototyping

Promoting is the stage where game developers take a raw test of the gaming idea to know whether it will work or not. It is a part of pre-production. In this stage, the developers check the functionality, gameplay, user experience, user interface, mechanics, and art direction of the game. Many ideas do not pass this stage. On the other hand, those gaming ideas which pass this stage usually have a great possibility to come up as an outstanding gaming app in the market.

Production

In this stage, the gaming idea or concept, outline, the story, mechanics, designs come to life as an outstanding job gaming app. Production is game development. However, it is not the last stage of gaming. After this, testing, marketing, pitching to the publishers, and launching come. These six stages play a very crucial role to develop an outstanding on-demand feature-reach gaming app with great user experience.

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