Game Development - Game Concept

If by circumstance your game concept has been approved and a wealth of reference material is gathered, the time has come to develop it. Rather than tackling the game as a whole, this entails breaking the idea down into it’s component parts and identifying their individual development needs. 

Creating the concept drawings of the game assets like characters, levels, vehicles and so on is a job for the designer or artist. This process is similar to the visual work undertaken in the film industry to develop the look and feel of a film. This activity will produce a great deal of concept art - both traditional and digital. This is used later by the modellers and animators when they are creating the 3D assets.

All digital games have an interface to enable the player to use them. At a basic level, this begins when the player loads the game and must navigate to the point where he starts to play. On-screen information is also presented to the player during gameplay - this is the graphical user interface (GUI). This may take the form of a head-up display, quite common in first person games, or information such as statistics and hits. The design of this important information is crucial. A well designed interface can add to the mood of a game before it is played.

Game mechanics are a crucial factor of design as well. There is always an opportunity to develop existing ideas for game mechanics, deploy them in different ways, or even develop entirely new ones. Remember though, that the game mechanics directly affect the way a player experiences a game - perhaps more so than other factors. Games with poorly designed or over-complicated mechanics are unlikely to be successful.

Sound within a game is a critical aspect. There are specialist musicians and sound technicians working in the games industry, and it is their role to help build and implement the sound in a game. A designer’s role at this stage is to suggest sound effects and dialogue to give the sound engineers direction in their work.

If the game is an adventure style game with a story this will need as much care over its development as a film script or novel would. Game players as a film script or novel would. Game players can be very critical of poorly thought-out or naive plots when the story may take the form of a write up of a typical game noting all the points a player may go through.

Games consist of stages or levels. As the players progress through a game, the levels generally increase in difficulty and the story develops. The designer must create a series of challenges for the player as they progress through the level. This means that the design of individual levels is closely linked to the design of the game mechanics.