ST.

JOSEPH’S COLLEGE
(AUTONOMOUS)
Bangalore

Term paper
On
“Video Game Development”

Submitted by the partial fulfillment of the

requirement for the award of Degree of
Bachelor of Computer Applications

Submitted by:
Neeraj Kumar GV
17BCA41056

Under the guidance of

Ms. Mrinmoyee, M.C.A, M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
 ST. JOSEPH’S COLLEGE
(AUTONOMOUS)
Bangalore

Certificate
This is to certify that Neeraj Kumar GV bearing
Register Number 17BCA41056 has successfully
completed the term paper on “Video Game
Development” for academic year 2019-2020
under the guidance of Ms. Mrinmoyee, M.C.A,
M.Phil.

Place: Bangalore
Date:

Ms. Mrinmoyee, M.C.A, M. Phil

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous)
 INDEX
Serial Page
Content
number Number
Topic
1 1-2
Video game history
2 3
History of Game
3 development 7

The process of Game

4 Development 11

Pre-Production
4.1 13
Pitch
4.1.1 Concept 15
4.1.2 Game Design 19
4.1.3 Document 22
4.1.4 Prototype 26

4.2 Production 28

4.2.1 Design 30
4.2.1.1 -World Design 31
4.2.1.2 -System Design 34
 -Content Design
4.2.1.3 36
Game Writing
37
-User Interface Design
4.2.1.4 41
-Audio Design
4.2.1.5 43
-Game Feel
4.2.1.6 45
-Visual
4.2.1.7 46
-Sound
4.2.1.8 47
-Design Process
4.2.1.9 49
Game Programming
4.2.2 51
Level Creation
4.2.3 56
Art Production
4.2.4 60
Audio Production
4.2.5 62
Testing
4.2.6 67
4.3 Post-Production 71

4.3.1 Maintenance 72
Milestones
4.4 74
Roles
5 80
Overview
6 90
Bibliography
7 93
 VIDEO GAME
DEVELOPMENT
VIDEO GAME HISTORY
Today, video games conjure a $100 billion worldwide
business, and nearly two-thirds of American homes have
family members who play video games often. And it’s no
wonder that Video games are around for many years and
span across variety of platforms, from arcade systems, to
home consoles, to hand-held consoles and mobile devices.
They’re additionally often at the forefront of computer
technology.

The Early Days

Though video games are found today in homes worldwide,

they actually got their start in the research labs of
scientists.

In 1952, for example, British educator A.S. Douglas made

OXO, otherwise called noughts and crosses or a tic-tac-toe
at the University of Cambridge. Also, in 1958, William
Higginbotham made Tennis for two on an enormous simple
PC and associated oscilloscope screen in Upton, New York.

In 1962, Steve Russell at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology developed Spacewar!, a PC based space battle
computer game for the PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-
1), at that point a cutting edge PC generally found at
colleges. It was the very first computer game that could be
played on different PC installations.

Dawn of the Home Console

In 1967, designers at Sanders Associates, Inc., driven by

Ralph Baer, invented a model multiplayer system, multi-
program computer game framework that could be played
on a TV. It was known as "The Brown box."
Baer, who's occasionally is referred to as Father of Video
Games, authorized his gadget to Magnavox, which offered
the framework to shoppers as the Odyssey, the very first
video-game home console, in 1972. Throughout the
following couple of years, the crude Odyssey console would
industrially and commercially fail and vanish.

The First Console War

In 1989, Sega released a 16 bit Sega Genesis video game

console in North America as a successor to its 1986 Sega
Master System, which neglected to sufficiently contend
with the Nintendo NES.

With its innovative prevalence over the NES, clever

promoting, and the 1991 arrival of the Sonic the Hedgehog
game, the Genesis made noteworthy progress against its
older opponent. In 1991, Nintendo released a 16 bit Super
NES in the North America, which launched the first ever
real "console war."

The early to mid 1990s saw the arrival of an abundance of

well known games on both of the consoles, including new
establishments, for example, Street Fighter II and Mortal
Kombat, an arcade fighting game that portrayed violence
on the Genesis rendition of the game.

Modern Age of Gaming

In 2005 and 2006, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3,

and Nintendo's Wii commenced the cutting edge period of
superior quality and high definition gaming. In spite of the
fact that the Playstation 3—the only system which could
play Blu-rays was effective in its very own right, Sony, for
the very first time in a long time, confronted solid
challenges and competition from its opponents.

Towards the part of the decade and start of the following,

computer games spread to web-based social networking
stages like Facebook and cell phones like the iPhone,
arriving at a progressively easygoing and casual gaming
audience. Rovio, the organization behind the Angry Birds
cell phone game (and, later Angry Birds animated movie),
apparently made an incredible $200 million of every 2012.

In 2016, Sony had released an all the more dominant

rendition of its console, called the Playstation 4 Pro, the
first console capable of 4 K video outputs. In mid 2017,
Nintendo released its Wii U successor, the Nintendo Switch,
the main system to permit both TV based and handheld
gaming. Microsoft had released its 4K-prepared console,
the Xbox One X, in late 2017.
With their new patched up and upgraded consoles, both
Sony and Microsoft at present have their sights set on
computer generated virtual reality gaming, an innovation
that can possibly change the manner in which players
experience computer and video games to change the way
players experience video games.

HISTORY OF GAME DEVELOPMENT

The historical backdrop of game development starts with
the development of the initial computer games, in spite of
the fact that which computer game always first depends on
the definition of computer game. The first games made had
a very little entertainment factor, and their development
focus was independent from client or user experience—
truth be told, these games required very high specifications
like in the mainframe computers to play them.

Genuine business plan and development of games started

during the 1970s, when arcade computer games and the
gen 1 consoles were advertised. In 1971, Computer Space
was the first economically sold, coin operated computer
game. It utilized a highly contrasting black and white TV
for its output display, and the PC was made of 74 serial
arrangement TTL chips. In 1972, the first console which
was accessible at homes was released and was called
Magnavox Odyssey, created by Ralph H. Baer. That
equivalent year, Atari released a game called Pong, an
arcade game that expanded computer game popularity.
The business achievement of Pong drove different
organizations to create Pong clones, bringing forth the
computer game industry. Software developers and
programmers worked in the enormous organizations to
create games for these consoles and arcade machines.

Home PCs showed up available on the market, enabling

individual software engineers, programmers and people
passionate for game development to create games. This
permitted manufacturers and software manufacturers to
act independently. An exceptionally huge number of games
could be created by a person, as games were anything but
difficult to make (easy to make) because of the graphical
and memory restriction that did not allow much content.
Bigger organizations created, who concentrated chosen
groups of developers to work on a game at a time. The
developers of numerous early home computer games, for
example, Zork, Baseball, Air Warrior, and Adventure, later
transitioned their work as results of the early gaming
industry.
Game development projects were developed in solo
efforts, with single developer providing completed games
to their publishers. With the regularly expanding processing
and graphical capacities of arcade machines, comfort and
PC products, alongside an expansion in user’s desires, game
design and development by 1987 a computer game required
a year to create and another six to plan promoting moved
past the extent of a single game developer to deliver an
attractive and a marketable game. This sparked the start of
group based or team based game development. In
expansive terms, during the 1980s, pre production included
portrays, drawings and test routines of the main developer.
During the 1990s, pre-production consisted mostly of game
art previews. In the mid 2000s, pre production for the most
part delivered a playable demo.

In 2000 a one to three year game development project was

supported and funded by a publisher for US$1M–3M. Also,
$250k–1.5M was spent on promoting and sales
improvement. In 2001, more than 3000 games were
released for PC; and from around 100 games turning profit
just around 50 made any significant benefit. In the mid
2000s it turned out to be progressively normal to utilize
middleware game engine, for example, Unity Engine,
Quake Engine or Unreal Engine to make games as it made
the development process a little easier.

In 2005, the cost of development for the mainstream video

games ranged from US$3M to $6M to create. A few games
cost as much as $20M to create. In 2006 the profits
acquired from a console game sold at retail was separated
among parties of distribution chain as pursues: Game
developer (13%), Game publisher (32%), Retail (32%),
Manufacturer (5%), and Console royalty (18%). In 2008 a
game developer would hold around 17% of retail cost and
around 85% whenever sold on the internet.

In 2009 games market yearly annual worth was evaluated

between $7–30 billion, depending upon which sales
numbers and figures are included in the evaluation. This is
on par with films box office market. A Game Publisher
would commonly support an individual developer and
designer for $500k–$5M for the development of a video
game title. In 2012, the complete worth of the video game
industry had just come to $66.3 billion and by then the
computer game markets were no longer dominated by
console games. As indicated by Newzoo, the portion of
MMO's was 19.8%, PC/MAC's 9.8%, tablets' 3.2%, smart
phones 10.6%, handhelds' 9.8%, consoles' only 36.7% and
casual online video games 10.2%.The quickest growing
market being mobile games with an average yearly rate of
19% for smart phones and 48% for iPad's and tablets.

Video game development is the process of creating a video

game. The effort is embraced by a designer, ranging from a
single person to an international team scattered over the
globe. The development of traditional commercial PC and
console games is usually financed by a publisher, and can
take quite a long while to arrive at completion of the
game. Non mainstream games or Indie games normally less
time and have a less budget and can be created by
individuals and smaller game developers. The Independent
game industry has been on the ascent or rise, encouraged
by the growth of new online distribution systems, for
example, Steam and Uplay, as well as the mobile game
market for Android and iOS gadgets.

The first computer games, created during the 1960s, were

noncommercial. They required mainframe computers to run
and were not accessible to the general public. Commercial
game development started during the '70s with the coming
of first generation video game consoles and early home PCs
like the Apple I. Around then, owing to low costs and low
capabilities of PCs, a single developer could build up a full
and complete game. Nonetheless, in the late '80s and '90s,
regularly expanding PC processing power and increased
desires and expectations from gamers made it hard for a
single person to deliver a mainstream console or PC game.
The normal expense of delivering a triple-A computer game
gradually rose, from US$1–4 million in 2000, to over $5
million in 2006, at that point to over $20 million by 2010.

Mainstream commercial computer and console games are

commonly created in stages or phases: first, in pre
production, pitches, prototypes, and game design are
composed; in the event that the idea is confirmed or
approved and the developer receives funding, at that point
full-scale development of the game starts. The
development of a total game more often than not includes
a group of 20–100 people with different duties, including
designers , artists, programmers, and analyzers or testers.

THE PROCESS OF GAME DEVELOPMENT

Game development is a software development process, as a
video game is software with art, audio, and game play.
Games with poor development system are probably going to
keep running over the allocated budget and time
estimates, and most likely will also contain an enormous
number of bugs. Planning is important for the game
development process for single developers or group
projects.

Game development, production, or design is a procedure

that begins from a thought, concept or idea. Regularly the
thought depends on an adjustment of a current game idea.
The game idea may fall inside one or a several genres.
Designers frequently try different things with various
genres. A game designer generally writes an initial game
proposal document, that describes the basic concept, game
play, feature list, setting and story, target audience,
requirements and schedule, and finally staff and budget
estimates.

In its simplest form, video game development is the

process of making a video game. You take an idea or a
concept for a game, and you develop, program, engineer,
render, record, mix, produce, test, etc. until you have a
full-fledged game. That definition is a good place to start,
but it's far from the whole picture.
The development of a commercial game usually comprises
of the following stages:

PRE PRODUCTION:

The pre production stage is where your thoughts are

converted to concrete visual portrayals, which can be later
executed in the creation, production or development
stage. The steps involved in the pre-production stage of
development for mobile game pre production stage
involves:

1) Decide upon Your Target Audience: For users of what

age/demographics do you wish to make your game? Are the
users from urban centers or rural centers? Which country
are they from? What is the age group of the users?

Answers to significant inquiries will help you in the

succeeding strides of picking an appropriate revenue model
and platform, alongside the huge steps of ideation and
concept generation.

2)Choose Platform: If your intended audience is rich and

living in urban spaces, you should pick the iOS platform
over some other platform as iOS gadgets are the most
utilized gadgets among the rich. Then again, on the off
chance that you wish to make a game for the not really rich
audience, at that point android is the most reasonable
alternative. For building an iOS game, you should pick and
utilize a reasonable iOS game development organization. A
game developed for iOS holds the benefit of producing a
bigger number of incomes than an android game as studies
demonstrate that the iOS creates 4x more normal income
per user than android.

3) Ideation: The following stage is to figure out what sort of

a game would you like to develop. Would it be an
adventure game or sports game? The answer will depend on
the demographics of your target users. For example, in the
event that you are making a game for young teenage
males, situated in India, at that point, developing a cricket
game can be a perfect decision.

4) Storyboarding and Prototyping: After figuring out what

sort of game you need to make, you should continue with
choosing the characters, storyline and visual backgrounds
of your game. Have these angles portrayed. At that point,
build and reexamine or revise prototypes with regular
feedbacks from your team.

5) Designing and Effects: After you conclude upon the final

prototype on paper, it's time you move to high fidelity
visual portrayals. Additionally, think about the visual and
audio effects you'd like to include the different scenes of
your game. So, finalize upon the animations and sounds as
well.

Pre-production or design phase is a planning phase of the

project focused on idea and concept development and
production of initial design documents. The objective of
idea/concept improvement is to create clear, easy to
understand and straightforward documentation, which
portrays all the tasks, schedules and estimates for the
development team. The suite of documents delivered in
this stage is called production plan. This stage is generally
not funded by a producer; anyway some good publishers
may expect developers to create plans during pre-
production stage.

The concept/idea documentation can be divided into three

phases or documents—high concept, pitch and concept;
documents—high concept, pitch and concept; for instance,
both Bethke (2003) and Bates (2004) refer to pitch
document as "game proposal", yet Moore, Novak (2010)
refers to concept document as "game proposal".

The late phase of pre-production may also be known as

proof of idea/concept, or technical review when more
detailed game documents are delivered.
Publishers have begun to expect more extensive game
proposition or proposals even including playable models.

High concept is a brief description of a game. The high

concept is a couple of sentence response to the inquiry,
"What is your game about?"

PITCH:

A pitch, concept document, proposal document, or game

proposal is a short summary document intended to present
the game's selling points and detail why the game would be
profitable to develop.

Verbal pitches may be made to management within the

developer company, and then presented to publishers. A
written document may need to be shown to publishers
before funding is approved. A game proposal may undergo
one to several green-light meetings with publisher
executives who determine if the game is to be developed.
The presentation of the project is often given by the game
designers. Demos may be created for the pitch; however
may be unnecessary for established developers with good
track records.

Prepare something special. Remember, the pitch is

basically you asking someone to give you a large amount of
money to make something that doesn't exist yet -- but
should. You have to make every element of your pitch go
towards that goal.

The best way to get this across to your audience, in order

of preference: interactive game play prototype, non-
interactive video presentation of game play, concept art
and environment views cut like a trailer (no more than two
minutes, since YouTube has taught us that attention spans
plummet after that point), and spoken presentation with
supporting materials.

Finish up the document with a one to two page game play

walkthrough. The latter section would be written from the
point of view of the player, describing key game play
mechanics and event sequences they would experience
during a particularly interesting moment in the game. No
matter the medium, it's always good to promote the best
aspects of the game, elaborate on the unique selling points
and offer the promise of the game being even better than
what you've shown – i.e., the first rule of show business:
leave them wanting more.

If the developer acts as its own publisher, or both

companies are subsidiaries of a single company, then only
the upper management needs to give approval.

Tips to achieve your best video game pitch!

1. Describe your game precisely.

First off, it’s fundamentally important for you to know all

the aspects of the game you’re developing: its genre, the
core game mechanics and game play experience, target
platforms, current development stage, and the funding you
need to finish it. This may seem obvious, but it’s very
important to be able to clearly state this information so
that there are no gaps in your pitch.

That’s why it is recommended that you write all of them

down in a detailed document or presentation, and use it
to prepare the “script” of your pitch.

2. Make clear what sets your project apart.

It’s important to clearly state what sets your game apart

from others. While you may mention other works or
references that inspired you, you must point out the things
that make your game unique in its genre, especially the
innovativeness of your project.

3. Know Your Audience.

Be sure to know who’s in front of you when you’re making

your pitch. Adjust the content, format, and length of
your speech according to who’s listening. There’s a large
difference between speaking to players, other developers,
press representatives, or publishers, so be sure to focus
your pitch accordingly.

4. Prepare your visual aids.

It’s very helpful to have visual aids to support your pitch.

Depending on the current state of development, you should
prepare different types of material:

If you’ve only got an idea or a basic prototype, you should

prepare a slideshow that includes concept art and models,
mockups of how you hope your game will look, or even a
video that explain what makes the game fun. The material
you choose will mostly depend on the strong points of your
project.
If you’ve got an advanced project, you should show a
trailer or game play footage that shows off the variety and
quality of the contents within your game.

5. Mention all the achievements of your project.

Does your game count on support from an institution? Has it

been selected at festivals or other competitive instances?
Has it received recognition or been mentioned by
specialized media? Don’t leave these achievements out of
your pitch, since they speak volumes of your project’s
quality and your team’s capabilities.

6. Don’t be afraid to practice your pitch and share your

idea.

You might not achieve the perfect pitch straight away.

Therefore, practice whenever you get a change. Bit by bit,
you’ll incorporate all the information, become more
confident, focus on points that need reinforcements, and
find the formula to make your speech appealing and
special.

7. Follow up on new contacts.

In most cases, the pitch is the first step in creating new

opportunities for your project, which is why it’s important
that you have the proper material to follow up with new
contacts. Depending on the type of contact, you can email
them the written version of your pitch, including
complementary material such as press kits, project
presentation, trailers, game play videos, and even a
playable demo.

CONCEPT:
The game concept in its simplest form is the vision of your
game put on paper in an easy to understand manner so that
everyone involved will be on the same page, know exactly
what the game is and what is going to be involved in order
to create it. This means that the publisher/investors, the
art team, the developers and even the marketers will know
what is going to be required of them. The game concept
should really follow the stages in which a game is created,
from the story to the art, and even how you're going to
make money with the game. You can think of the game
concept as kind of the instruction book for each of the
departments involved, but it's also where these designers
and programmers are able to express their concerns and
lend their own thoughts to make the best game possible.
The game concept really means different things to each
department, and provides each department with the
information they need. For example, it will give the
animators a road map for the type of animations that will
fit the style of the game. For us, the person with idea, and
the one creating the game concept it's really a way for you
to sell your game. Sell your ideas to investors; sell the
game play concepts to the programmers, and the art to the
artists.

Concept document, game proposal, or game plan is a more

detailed document than the pitch document. This includes
all the information produced about the game. This includes
the high concept, game's genre, gameplay description,
features, setting, story, target audience, hardware
platforms, estimated schedule, marketing analysis, team
requirements, and risk analysis.

Before an approved design is completed, a skeleton crew of

programmers and artists usually begins work. Programmers
may develop quick-and-dirty prototypes showcasing one or
more features that stakeholders would like to see
incorporated in the final product. Artists may develop
concept art and asset sketches as a springboard for
developing real game assets. Producers may work part-time
on the game at this point, scaling up for full-time
commitment as development progresses. Game producers
work during pre-production is related to planning the
schedule, budget and estimating tasks with the team. The
producer aims to create a solid production plan so that no
delays are experienced at the start of the production.

The core idea should really be at the beginning of the game

concept, and will present the idea you have for the game.
It could be just a few paragraphs describing your game and
what it is, including the universe, the type of characters
and even a quick overview of the story. It should get the
people involved excited, it can really be where the writer
in you comes out. Along with the core idea of your game,
you also want to describe some of the key elements of your
game and what the player will be doing. Depending on how
complex the game is going to be will determine how in-
depth this area of the documentation is going to be. For
example, you may have a castle defender mobile game. So
this area can be the bullet points of the game, the goal of
the game, what the player uses to defend their castle,
what items they can collect and how they advance. You
don't want to make this a list that goes on for pages and
pages, but instead provide a quick overview of the key
features of the game, and what will set it apart from other
games. The reader should get a good idea of the style of
game, and have a clear vision just from this quick bullet
point overview.

VIDEO GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT:

Before a full-scale production can begin, the development

team produces the first version of a game design document
incorporating all or most of the material from the initial
pitch. The design document describes the game's concept
and major game play elements in detail. It may also
include preliminary sketches of various aspects of the
game. The design document is sometimes accompanied by
functional prototypes of some sections of the game. The
design document remains a living document throughout the
development—often changed weekly or even daily.

Compiling a list of game's needs is called "requirement

capture".

Why You Need a GDD

Good Documentation is a Must
Having a well thought out game design document can be
very helpful you the game developers. It will let them see
the awesome ideas and concepts that they have thought
about for a long time when they first started on their
game, and, perhaps more importantly, which ones need to
be cut from the game to make your life easier, or reworked
to make your efforts worthwhile.

A GDD helps Game Design and Development

A game design document acts as a nexus and hub to
connect and list every aspect of a game. It consists of
written descriptions, images, graphs, charts and lists of
information pertinent to each segment of development,
and is often organized by what features will be in the
game, and clearly lays out how they will all fit together.

Creating a GDD will aid your team's designer in

understanding what the essence of the game is and the
planned scope of its overarching world and game play.
Plus, having all the game elements in one well-organized
document will help the designer easily convey their vision
to the rest of the team, while also helping to pinpoint
weaknesses or missing components that the game may
require.

The GDD should serve as your master checklist. It will be

the document you toss up in the air in celebration upon
completing all its sections and finishing your game.

A GDD Helps in Other Areas, Too

Since a GDD is full of descriptions, it is an ideal resource
for all PR and marketing fronts, with concepts that convey
the game's aesthetic and appeal already written up and
ready to copy and paste.

Prospective employees' skills can be quickly assessed as

qualified or not by looking at their credentials alongside
their positions' corresponding sections in the document.

If fundraising is in the cards for your team, it will be crucial

to have a well put together GDD for investors to look over
and determine the risks of your development, as well as
your ability to deliver on your promises.

A GDD Keeps Everyone on the Same Page

Creating and adhering to a game design document is like
planting a seed and watching it grow into a tree over the
course of development. You have your initial preparation,
cultivation, and ultimately the gruesome and backbreaking
toil of the harvest.
A common mistake is not handing all your team members
the proper gardening tools to make your game a reality.
The GDD will help make sure everyone is working together,
so that you don't find your programmer and artist cutting
off the branch they are standing on.

The purpose of a game design document is to

unambiguously describe the game's selling points, target
audience, game play, art, level design, story, characters,
UI, assets, etc. In short, every game part requiring
development should be included by the developer in
enough detail for the respective developers to implement
the said part. The document is purposely sectioned and
divided in a way that game developers can refer to and
maintain the relevant parts.

The majority of video games should require an inclusion or

variation of the following sections:

 Story

 Characters

 Level/environment design

 Game play

 Art

 Sound and Music

 User Interface, Game Controls

 Accessibility

Life cycle of Game Design Document: Game developers may

produce the game design document in the pre-production
stage of game development—prior to or after a pitch.
Before a pitch, the document may be conceptual and
incomplete. Once the project has been approved, the
document is expanded by the developer to a level where it
can successfully guide the development team. Because of
the dynamic environment of game development, the
document is often changed, revised and expanded as
development progresses and changes in scope and direction
are explored. As such, a game design document is often
referred to as a living document, that is, a piece of work
which is continuously improved upon throughout the
implementation of the project, sometimes as often as
daily. A document may start off with only the basic concept
outlines and become a complete, detailed list of every
game aspect by the end of the project.

PROTOTYPE:

Placeholder graphics are characteristic of early game

prototypes.

Writing prototypes of game play ideas and features is an

important activity that allows programmers and game
designers to experiment with different algorithms and
usability scenarios for a game. A great deal of prototyping
may take place during pre-production before the design
document is complete and may, in fact, help determine
what features the design specifies. Prototyping at this
stage is often done manually, (paper prototyping), not
digitally, as this is often easier and faster to test and make
changes before wasting time and resources into what could
be a canceled idea or project. Prototyping may also take
place during active development to test new ideas as the
game emerges.

Prototypes are often meant only to act as a proof of

concept or to test ideas, by adding, modifying or removing
some of the features. Most algorithms and features
debuted in a prototype may be ported to the game once
they have been completed.

Often prototypes need to be developed quickly with very

little time for up-front design (around 15 to 20 minutes of
testing). Therefore, usually very prolific programmers are
called upon to quickly code these tested tools. RAD tools
may be used to aid in the quick development of these
programs. In case the prototype is in a physical form,
programmers and designers alike will make the game with
paper, dice, and other easy to access tools in order to
make the prototype faster.

A successful development model is iterative prototyping,

where design is refined based on current progress. There
are various technologies available for video game
development.

Prototyping is an extremely handy tool that's used

exclusively for proving that your ideas and solutions will
work. While it may seem boring at first, you'll find out that
it saves you a TON of time later when you start getting into
bringing your the finished assets. This is when the project
gets really exciting and can stay that way, because you've
already knocked out most of the major systems by this
point with prototyping! So don't worry about graphics just
yet. All good things come with time.
When creating prototypes, it's important to stay loose and
not get too wrapped up in what could possibly come up in
the project later on because chances are your project won't
look or even play exactly the same as you originally
intended. Prototyping is more about testing ideas and
solutions to your problems in game development.
Remember there isn't just one solution to your problem.
Some may be better than others, but it's not always wrong.
Quality is hard work... mostly.

PRODUCTION:

Production is the main stage of development, when assets

and source code for the game are produced.
Mainstream production is usually defined as the period of
time when the project is fully staffed. Programmers write
new source code, artists develop game assets, such as,
sprites or 3D models. Sound engineers develop sound
effects and composers develop music for the game. Level
designers create levels, and writers write dialogue for cut
scenes and NPCs. Game designers continue to develop the
game's design throughout production.

Production generally refers to the work that producers do,

and in the context of video game development, it
specifically refers to project management. Often in game
development, there is only one producer per title in
development, so the term "producer" is a bit more relevant
than "production team." On large multi-million dollar
console titles, there may be multiple producers, but they
will always be far outnumbered by programmers and
artists.

What do producers do?

A producer of a video game is the person who oversees

everyone and their work on a day-to-day basis. Producers
have knowledge of what's going on in every department,
usually to a fairly tight level of detail, which allows them
to see whether and how all the other departments' work is
coming together. Part of a producer's job is to spot
potential problems before they become problems, including
issues related to scheduling, time management, budgets,
and inter-departmental cooperation (for example, making
sure that what the design team is doing fits with the work
the art team is producing).

One of the main responsibilities of a producer is to create

all the schedules, and then make sure people are sticking
to them. When work simply cannot be completed in the
time frame originally allotted, it's often up to the producer
to rework the schedules and find a sensible solution.
Producers can never make everyone happy all the time, but
they do keep everyone productive.

Start developing on the gaming modules.

Prioritize the most crucial parts and move it on to early
sprints.

Start Creating the Art-Assets

Game Objects
Background /Environments
Animations
Visual – effects
Level-Design
UI – Elements creations
Game Balancing & Depth
Audio Creation
Review on each sprints & Work on the feedback.
Optimization & Module Testing
Integration of all the Modules.
DESIGN:

Video game design is the process of designing the content

and rules of a video game in the production stage and
designing the game play, environment, storyline, and
characters in the production stage. The designer of a game
is very much like the director of a film; the designer is the
visionary of the game and controls the artistic and
technical elements of the game in fulfillment of their
vision. Video game design requires artistic and technical
competence as well as writing skills. As the industry has
aged and embraced alternative production methodologies
such as agile, the role of a principal game designer has
begun to separate - some studios emphasizing the auteur
model while others emphasizing a more team oriented
model. Within the video game industry, video game design
is usually just referred to as "game design", which is a more
general term elsewhere.

As games became more complex and computers and

consoles became more powerful, the job of the game
designer became separate from the lead programmer. Soon
game complexity demanded team members focused on
game design. Many early veterans chose the game design
path eschewing programming and delegating those tasks to
others.

With very complex games, such as MMORPGs or a big

budget action or sports title, designers may number in the
dozens. In these cases, there are generally one or two
principal designers and many junior designers who specify
subsets or subsystems of the game. In larger companies like
Electronic Arts, each aspect of the game (control, level
design) may have a separate producer, lead designer and
several general designers. They may also come up with a
plot for the game.

Disciplines:
 World design

World design is the creation of a back-story, setting, and

theme for the game; often done by a lead designer. World
design can also be the creation of a universe or a map, as
well as topics or areas that are likely to be pursued by the
player. It is a map referenced for creation of everything as
it shows where it is and allows for the most logistical
design in any given game.

Games entertain through game play, but many also

entertain by taking the player away to an imaginary place—
a game world. In fact, the game play in most single-player
video games appears to the player as interactions between
himself and the game world. A game world is an artificial
universe, an imaginary place in which the events of the
game occur. When the player enters the magic circle and
pretends to be somewhere else, the game world is the
place she pretends to be.

Most video games present their game world with pictures

and sound: art, animation, music, and audio effects. Not
all game worlds have a visible or audible component,
however. In a text adventure, the player creates the
images and sounds of the world in his imagination when he
reads the text on the screen. Designing such a world is a
matter of using your literary skills to describe it in words.

Game worlds are much more than the sum of the pictures
and sounds that portray them. A game world can have a
culture, an aesthetic, a set of moral values, and other
dimensions that you'll look at in this chapter. The game
world also has a relationship to reality, whether it is highly
abstract, with little connection to the world of everyday
things, or highly representational, attempting to be as
similar to the real world as possible.

The Purposes of a Game World

Games entertain by several means: game play, novelty,
social interaction (if it is a multiplayer game), and so on. In
a game such as chess, almost all the entertainment value is
in the game play; few people think of it as a game about
medieval warfare. In an adventure game such as Escape
from Monkey Island, the world is essential to the fantasy.
Without the world, Escape from Monkey Island would not
exist, and if it had a different world, it would be a
different game. One of the purposes of a game world is
simply to entertain in its own right: to offer the player a
place to explore and an environment to interact with.
As a general rule, the more that a player understands a
game's core mechanics, the less the game world matters.
Mastering the core mechanics requires a kind of abstract
thought, and fantasy can be a distraction. Serious chess
players don't think of the pieces as representing actual
kings and queens and knights. When players become highly
skilled at a game such as Counter-Strike, they no longer
think that they're pretending to be soldiers or terrorists;
they think only about hiding, moving, shooting, ambushing,
and obtaining ammunition, and so on. However, this kind of
abstract play, ignoring a game's world, usually occurs only
among experienced players. To someone who's playing a
game for the first time, the world is vital to creating and
sustaining her interest.

The other purpose of a game's world is to sell the game in

the first place. It's not the game's mechanics that make a
customer pick up a box in a store but the fantasy it offers:
who she'll be, where she'll be, and what she'll be doing
there if she plays that game.

 System design
System design is the creation of game rules and underlying
mathematical patterns.

The Hallmarks of Good Systems

RPG and strategy games tend to have a ton of content more

than any one person can keep in their head at once. Game
systems don't just define how that content works they are a
tool that designers use to generate, tweak, tune, and
manage that content.

From a designer's perspective, good systems should be five

things: comprehensible, consistent, predictable,
extensible, and elegant.

1. Comprehensible: You, the designer, should

understand all the parts of your system. You should
know how you choose various values in your game,
why you do it that way, and what other rules and
content those values impact. If you want to adjust
your game play in a specific way, you should know
what to change to get that result.

2. Consistent: Your game rules and content should

function the same in all areas of your game. For
example, Armor shouldn't work differently for flying
units, and the formula for gold value of items
shouldn't change at high levels. This is a big part of
making your game comprehensible to you.

3. Predictable: You should be able to determine how

your systems will behave in new circumstances. If you
multiply experience gained by 2 in some situation, or
introduce a monster with double the normal armor,
you should be able to predict the results. Using simple
progressions and formulas helps make predictable
systems.

4. Extensible: When you create new types of content for

your game, you should be able to easily extend your
 existing systems to include it. Maybe they decide what
your game really needs is randomly generated mini
bosses.

You should be able to extend your existing monster

content to include them easily. Extensibility makes it
easier to design your game iteratively, adding new
systems and content types as they are needed.

5. Elegant: They create extremely rich situations from a

small number of moving parts. Some of the examples
of elegant system design are 4th Edition D&D, Magic:
the Gathering, and Settlers of Catan.

 Content design
Content design is the creation of characters, items,
puzzles, and missions.

A secondary definition of Content design is the creation of

any aspect of the game that is not required for the game to
function properly and meet the minimum product standard.
In essence, content is the complexity added to a minimum
viable product to increase its value. An example of this is
the item list from Final Fantasy. None of the items are
necessary for the game to function, but they add value and
complexity to the game as a whole.

Game writing
Video game writing is the art and craft of writing scripts for
video games. Similar to screenwriting, it is typically a
freelance profession. It includes many differences from
writing for film, due to the non-linear and interactive
nature of most video games, and the necessity to work
closely with video game designers and voice actors. There
are many differing types of text in video games in
comparison to stage shows or movies, including written
text, foreign or made-up languages, and often situation-
based information. Especially when developing Triple A
games, more than one writer will be required to create the
game, split into different roles.

Game writing involves writing dialogue, text, and story.

Writing in games also includes the elements in which the

literature is presented. Voice acting, text, and music are
all elements of game writing.
Types of game writing:
Video game writing differs from writing for arts, due to the
non-linear and interactive nature of most video games, and
the necessity to work closely with video game designers
and voice actors. There are many differing types of text in
video games in comparison to stage shows or movies,
including written text, foreign or made-up languages, and
often situation-based information. Subsequently, more than
one writer will often be used to create the game, split into
different roles, with more specific job titles that can range
from being a traditional writer, developing an overview of
the story and how it reacts to the player, or creating a
translation or localization.

 Pitch writing:
A pitch writer specializes in writing pitches for video games
to publishers. They create collaborative pitch documents
within a game studio that often contain design mockups or
art concepts. The main parts of a pitch document, in order
from first to last, are the executive summary, audience
analysis, story, competition analysis, market analysis, game
play, and budget and schedule.

With an increasing emphasis placed on game profitability,

especially in the free to play model, the F.T.U.E. (First
Time User Experience) and retention metrics have also
become important parts of the pitch document.

 Narrative design:
Narrative designer is a hybrid role of video game design and
writing that creates not only the story, but also how it is
communicated to players and how the game mechanics
work to reinforce that story. The role of narrative design
writer is described the role as "the person who shapes the
game’s narrative, as well as the one who writes all the
words."

 Script work:
Script writing-
The script writer focuses on the dialogue said by characters
and the voice over. The script's dialogue can be written in
flowcharts to illustrate the various dialogues resulting from
both decision and indecision. Generally, a script writer is
less involved with the video game's mechanics, and is
tasked with writing and working with voice actors.

Script doctoring-
Similarly to screenplay script doctors, video game writers
can be brought in to assist with writing-related tasks.
However, the term is vaguer than in screenplays due to the
wide variety of potential tasks needed.

 Level design
Level design, environment design, or game mapping is a
discipline of game development involving creation of video
game levels—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly
done using a level editor, game development software
designed for building levels; however, some games feature
built-in level editing tools. Level design is both an artistic
and technical process.

Level design for each individual level in a modern game

typically starts with concept art, sketches, renderings, and
physical models. Once completed, these concepts
transform into extensive documentation, environment
modeling, and the placing of game specific entities
(actors), usually with the aid of a level editor.

A level editor may be distributed as a complete stand-alone

package, at times, rivaling commercial 3D modeling
software. There are various steps involved in laying out a
map and these steps may vary dramatically across the many
different game genres that exist today.

Level design is the construction of world levels and its

features. Level design makes use of many different fields
to create a game world. Lighting, space, framing, color and
contrast are used to draw a player's attention. A designer
can then use these elements to guide or direct the player
in a specific direction through the game world, or mislead
them.

Level design is necessary for two primary purposes -

providing players with a goal and providing players with
enjoyable play experience. Good level design strives to
produce quality game play, provide an immersive
experience, and sometimes, especially in story-based
games, to advance the storyline. Skilled use of textures and
audio is necessary to produce immersive player experience.

 User interface design

A user interface is the set of features one uses to interact
with something. It allows us to provide input to and receive
output from that something. It is created, or provided, by
the manufacturer and dictates how it is perceived and
used. Sometimes, the user interface is inherently
understood, like that of a common household item such as
a fork or spoon. At other times, it requires significant
training, like that of a fighter jet. Regardless of the
complexity, the user interface controls our experience and
forces us, at some level, to interact in a fashion decided
upon by the manufacturer.

User interface (UI) design deals with the construction the

user interactions and feedback interface, like menus or
heads-up displays.
The user interface also incorporates game mechanics
design. Deciding how much information to give the player
and in what way allows the designer to inform the player
about the world, or perhaps leave them uninformed.
Another aspect to consider is the method of input a game
will use and deciding to what degree a player can interact
with a game with these inputs. These choices have a
profound effect on the mood of the game, as it directly
affects the player in both noticeable and subtle ways.

Put simply, the role of a good UI is to provide relevant

information clearly and quickly, and to get out of the way
once it has done its job. If you only take one bit of
information from this tutorial, let this be it:

A good UI tells you what you need to know, and then gets
out of the way.

We can go further into the process of UI design to six

fundamental questions:

1. Does this interface tell me what I need to know right

now?
2. Is it easy to find the information I'm looking for, or do
I have to look around for it? (Are the menus nested so
deep that they hide information from the player?)

3. Can I use this interface without having to read

instructions elsewhere?

4. Are the things I can do on this screen obvious?

5. Do I ever need to wait for the interface to load or play

an animation?
 6. Are there any tedious or repetitive tasks that I can
shorten (with a shortcut key, for example) or remove
entirely?

Ask these questions frequently as you design and play your

game. The world of UI design is a world of endless
nitpicking, and it's one of the few areas of game
development where it's okay to obsess.

User interface design in video games has unique goals. A

conscious decision has to be made regarding the amount of
information to relay to the player. However, the UI in
games do not have to be absolutely streamlined. Players
expect challenges and are willing to accept them as long as
the experience is sufficiently rewarding. By the same
token, navigating or interaction with a game's UI can be
satisfying without the need to be effortless.

 Audio design
Video game sound design is the art of creating and adding
audio elements to a video game. This involves creating
entire libraries of custom sound effects to give the game a
sense of realism and uniqueness. The sound effects must
then be implemented properly to the images that will be
seen by the player. Anyone who has had a game’s audio not
working properly, such as a silent explosion or dialogue,
knows how important sound effects are. Even the earliest
video games used what little technical resources they had
to add sounds and make the game more attractive. Pong,
for example, had simple beeping sounds when the ball hit
the paddles. Even though the creators couldn’t make
sounds of a crowd booing and hissing, the different tones
used in the original helped make it a more fun experience.

A sound designer is the person who generates and

manipulates audio elements for the game.

While there are a few key differences, the role of a sound

designer in the gaming industry is similar in many ways to
that of television production, theatre, and filmmaking.

Without someone to actually create the music and sound

effects for a game, everyone would have to use the same
existing sounds.

It’s All about Teamwork

The goal of the sound designer is to work together with the

design and animation team to create rich audio that fits
the virtual experience being developed.

Games are interactive and thus do not have fixed sound

and music.
This means that the sound designer must create several
layers of audio that matches the player’s choices and
movement that each sound effect and music track is
appropriate to what is taking place on-screen.

Video game sound designers also often collaborate with

composers to help create and edit music for the game.
Since many composers are outsourced, it’s the sound
designer’s responsibility to make sure they understand the
vision of the game and what direction the music should go.

Sound designers also have the task of testing the game

during the late stages of development to catch any audio
bugs or mistakes.

Sound designers do almost all of their work on computers.

Different computer programs and applications are needed

to create, manipulate, and store sound effects for games.
Today there are many different tools that sound designers
can take advantage of.

While most programs cost money to use, there are plenty

of free tools out there.

 Game feel
Game feel (sometimes referred to as "game juice") is the
intangible, tactile sensation experienced when interacting
with video games. The term was popularized by the book
Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation
written by Steve Swink. The term has no formal definition,
but there are many defined ways to improve game feel.
The different areas of a game that can be manipulated to
improve game feel are: input, response, context,
aesthetic, metaphor, and rules.

Game feel is usually attributed to spatial games whose

mechanics involve controlling the movement of objects or
characters. Since the majority of games are spatial, studies
involving game feel mainly focus on the movement and
physical interactions between objects in games. The goal of
good game feel is to immerse the player in an engaging and
rewarding experience. A way to test game feel is to see if
interacting with a game's most basic mechanics feels
satisfying. At minimum, the game should feel engaging to
play even after the plot, points, level design, music, and
graphics are removed; if it is not, then the game may
suffer from poor game feel.

Aesthetic
Aesthetics (also referred to as "polish") is the extra details
that influence the player's senses. Since games are
primarily focused on sight and sound (graphics and
music/sfx), aesthetics amplify both the visuals and the
audio of the game to make the overall experience more
engaging to the player.

 Visual:

Visual aesthetics add details to the game world that make

it feel more vibrant and connected. Visual details can
subconsciously inform the player of the subtle interactions
between the objects in the game world. Simple examples
include adding particle effects, like dirt being kicked up by
the game character's feet or water splashing from a pool,
can enhance the inherent connection between physical
objects in the game world.
Visual effects can also improve game feel by introducing
extra spectacle and dazzling the player. Vivid colors and
bright aesthetics can make a game feel alive, and adding
effects like bright flashes, sparks, explosions, debris, and
camera shake enhances the impact of events in the game.

 Sound

Sound effects emphasize the interactions between objects

in the game. Having weak or quiet sound effects can lead
to the game objects feeling weak and less impactful. If the
sounds themselves are low quality, it can be especially
distracting to the player. Good game feel requires
appropriate, impactful, and pleasing (non-repetitive) sound
effects.

Music can also have a big effect on game feel. Game

music's main purpose is to reinforce the main mood or tone
of the game. Action games generally use loud and
bombastic scores to emphasize the feeling of power and
triumph, and horror games generally use subtle, tense
music with loud spikes to drive home moments of intensity.

Input
Input is the means by which a player can control the game.
The physical input device used by the player has an effect
on game feel; for instance, using a joystick to control
movement feels natural because the joystick itself offers
physical feedback. In other cases, like with touch screens,
the input device can offer little feedback and be
cumbersome for the player to use.

Game feel can be improved by using a control scheme that

is easily understood by the player. Natural mappings allow
a game designer to connect a game's movement mechanics
to an input device. Realistic racing games, like Grand
Turismo, make the most sense when using a racing wheel
controller; in this case the input device directly matches
the game's movement mechanics. Arcade cabinets often
have unique controls to better relate to their movement
mechanics. For example, Centipede uses a trackball as its
main input; the inclusion of a trackball allows the player to
move in all directions with ease, which is the main focus of
the game's mechanics.

Input sensitivity also plays a role in game feel. Sensitivity is

defined as a "rough measure of the amount of
expressiveness inherent in a particular input device." Each
different controller has a unique inherent sensitivity, and
because of that the pairing of controller and game can
have a dramatic impact on game feel. A game that requires
precision being matched with a low-sensitivity controller
can make the game hard to play or even frustrating.

Design process
The design process varies from designer to designer and
companies have different formal procedures and
philosophies.

The typical "textbook" approach is to start with a concept

or a previously completed game and from there create a
game design document. This document is intended to map
out the complete game design and acts as a central
resource for the development team. This document should
ideally be updated as the game evolves throughout the
production process.

Designers are frequently expected to adapt to multiple

roles of widely varying nature: For example, concept
prototyping can be assisted with the use of pre-existing
engines and tools like GameMaker Studio, Unity, Godot, or
Construct. Level designs might be done first on paper and
again for the game engine using a 3D modeling tool.
Scripting languages are used for many elements—AI, cut
scenes, GUI, environmental processes, and many other
behaviors and effects—that designers would want to tune
without a programmer's assistance. Setting, story and
character concepts require a research and writing process.
Designers may oversee focus testing, write up art and audio
asset lists, and write game documentation. In addition to
the skill set, designers are ideally clear communicators
with attention to detail and ability to delegate
responsibilities appropriately.

Design approval in the commercial setting is a continuous

process from the earliest stages until the game ships.

When a new project is being discussed (either internally, or

as a result of dialogue with potential publishers), the
designer may be asked to write a sell-sheet of short
concepts, followed by a one or two-page pitch of specific
features, audience, platform, and other details. Designers
will first meet with leads in other departments to establish
agreement on the feasibility of the game given the
available time, scope, and budget. If the pitch is approved,
early milestones focus on the creation of a fleshed-out
design document. Some developers advocate a prototyping
phase before the design document is written to experiment
with new ideas before they become part of the design.

As production progresses, designers are asked to make

frequent decisions about elements missing from the design.
The consequences of these decisions are hard to predict
and often can only be determined after creating the full
implementation. These are referred to as the unknowns of
the design, and the faster they are uncovered, the less risk
the team faces later in the production process. Outside
factors such as budget cuts or changes in milestone
expectations also result in cuts to the design, and while
overly large cuts can take the heart out of a project, cuts
can also result in a streamlined design with only the
essential features, polished well.
Towards the end of production, designers take the brunt of
responsibility for ensuring that the game play remains at a
uniform standard throughout the game, even in very long
games. This task is made more difficult under "crunch"
conditions, as the entire team may begin to lose sight of
the core game play once pressured to hit a date for a
finished and bug-free game.

 GAME PROGRAMMING:

The programming of the game is handled by one or more

game programmers. They develop prototypes to test ideas,
many of which may never make it into the final game. The
programmers incorporate new features demanded by the
game design and fix any bugs introduced during the
development process. Even if an off-the-shelf game engine
is used, a great deal of programming is required to
customize almost every game.

Development process
Professional game development usually begins with a game
design, which itself has several possible origins.
Occasionally the game development process starts with no
clear design in mind, but as a series of experiments.

Prototyping
Programmers are often required to produce prototypes of
game play ideas and features. A great deal of prototyping
may take place during pre-production, before the design
document is complete, and may help determine what
features the design specifies.

Prototypes are developed quickly with very little time for

up-front design and mostly act as a proof of concept or to
test ideas. They are not expected to work flawlessly, but
are developed to try out new, sometimes exotic, ideas.

 Game design
Though the programmer's main job is not to develop the
game design, the programmers often contribute to the
design, as do game artists. The game designer will get
input from both the producer and the art and programming
lead for ideas and strategies for the game design. Often
individuals in non-lead positions also contribute, such as
copywriters and other programmers and artists.

Programmers often closely follow the game design

document. As the game development progresses, the
design document changes as programming limitations and
new capabilities are discovered and exploited.

 Production

During production, programmers may create a great deal of

source code to create the game described in the game's
design document. Along the way, the design document is
modified to meet limitations or expanded to exploit new
features. The design document is very much a "living
document", much of whose life is dictated by programmer's
schedules, talent and resourcefulness.

While many programmers have some say in a game's

content, most game producers solicit input from the lead
programmer as to the status of a game programming
development. The lead is responsible for knowing the
status of all facets of the game's programming and for
pointing out limitations. The lead programmer may also
pass on suggestions from the programmers as to possible
features they'd like to implement.

With today's visually rich content, the programmer must

often interact with the art staff. This very much depends
on the programmer's role, of course. For example, a 3D
graphics programmer may need to work side by side with
the game's 3D modelers discussing strategies and design
considerations, while an AI programmer may need to
interact very little, if at all, with the art staff. To help
artists and level designers with their tasks, programmers
may volunteer or be called upon to develop tools and
utilities. Many of these may be for a specific purpose and
can be buggy due to time constraints (time for
development of such tools is often not included in a game's
schedule) as well as because they are only for in-house use
anyway. Many game tools are developed in RAD languages
for quicker development and may be discarded after the
completion of the game.

 Testing

Game testing, a subset of game development, is a software

testing process for quality control of video games. The
primary function of game testing is the discovery and
documentation of software defects (aka bugs). Interactive
entertainment software testing is a highly technical field
requiring computing expertise, analytic competence,
critical evaluation skills, and endurance. In recent years
the field of game testing has come under fire for being
excessively strenuous and unrewarding, both financially
and emotionally.

Testing starts as soon as first code is written and increases

as the game progresses towards completion. The main
Quality assurance (QA) team will monitor the game from its
first submission to QA until as late as post-production. Early
in the game development process the testing team is small
and focuses on daily feedback for new code. As the game
approaches alpha stage, more team members are employed
and test plans are written. Sometimes features that are not
bugs are reported as bugs and sometimes the programming
team fails to fix issues first time around. A good bug-
reporting system may help the programmers work
efficiently. As the project enters beta stage, the testing
team will have clear assignments for each day. Tester
feedback may determine final decisions of exclusion or
inclusion of final features. Introducing testers with fresh
perspectives may help identify new bugs. At this point the
lead tester communicates with the producer and
department heads daily. If the developer has an external
publisher, then coordination with publisher's QA team
starts. For console games, a build for the console company
QA team is sent. Beta testing may involve volunteers, for
example, if the game is multiplayer.

Testers receive scheduled uniquely identifiable game builds

from the developers. The game is play-tested and testers
note any uncovered errors. These may range from bugs to
art glitches to logic errors and level bugs. Testing requires
creative game play to discover often subtle bugs. Some
bugs are easy to document, but many require detailed
description so a developer can replicate or find the bug.
Testers implement concurrency control to avoid logging
bugs multiple times. Many video game companies separate
technical requirement testing from functionality testing
altogether since a different testing skill set is required.

The formal quality assurance testing process, performed by

professional game testers, begins well into game
development. High-budget titles may begin testing with the
first playable alpha, while low-budget and casual games
might not enter testing until a release candidate is ready.
The programmers' task is to fix errors and bugs as such are
discovered by the QA teams.

 Nearing completion
Final tasks include "polishing" the game, such as
programmers fixing occasional bugs—from minor to
catastrophic—that may arise during the last phases of
testing.

Game developers may have a beta testing period, but the

definition of such varies from developer to developer.
Often a beta contains all of the game's features, but may
have a few bugs or incomplete content. Few games are
given a public beta period, for example, to measure stress
tolerance for game servers.

When the game is deemed complete, it is said to have

"gone gold" and is shipped off to the publisher. Depending
on circumstances, the publisher may then subject it to its
own quality assurance or may begin pressing the game from
the gold master.

 Maintenance

Once game ships, the maintenance phase for the video

game begins. Programmers wait for a period to get as many
bug reports as possible. Once the developer thinks they've
obtained enough feedback, the programmers start working
on a patch. The patch may take weeks or months to
develop, but it's intended to fix most bugs and problems
with the game. Occasionally a patch may include extra
features or content or may even alter game play.

 Duration

Most modern games take from one to three years to

complete. The length of development depends on a number
of factors, but programming is required throughout all
phases of development except the very early stages of
game design.

 LEVEL CREATION:
From a time standpoint, the game's first level takes the
longest to develop. As level designers and artists use the
tools for level building, they request features and changes
to the in-house tools that allow for quicker and higher
quality development. Newly introduced features may cause
old levels to become obsolete, so the levels developed
early on may be repeatedly developed and discarded.
Because of the dynamic environment of game
development, the design of early levels may also change
over time. It is not uncommon to spend upwards of twelve
months on one level of a game developed over the course
of three years. Later levels can be developed much more
quickly as the feature set is more complete and the game
vision is clearer and more stable.

General steps include:

 Laying out the large-scale features of the map, such as

hills, cities, rooms, tunnels, etc., for players and
enemies to move around in;
 Determining environmental conditions and "ground rules"
such as day/night, weather, scoring systems, allowable
 weapons or game play types, time limits, and starting
resources.

 Specifying certain regions where certain game play

activities or behaviors occur, such as resource
harvesting, base building, water travelling, etc.;

 Specifying non-static parts of a level, such as doors, keys

and buttons with associated mechanisms, teleporters,
hidden passageways, etc.;

 Specifying locations of various entities, such as player

units, enemies, monster spawn points, ladders, coins,
resource nodes, weapons, save points, etc.;

 Specifying the start and exit locations for one or more

players;

 Adding aesthetic details such as level-specific graphic

textures, sounds, animation, lighting and music;

 Introducing scripted event locations, where certain

actions by the player can trigger specified changes;

 Placing path finding nodes that non-player characters

take as they walk around, the actions they will take in
response to specific triggers, and any dialog they might
have with the player.

The first level of the game usually designed to get players

to explore the mechanics of the game.

Cut scenes may be triggered by events in a level, but

require distinctly different skills, and may be created by a
different person or team.
The Level Design Process may be iterated several times
before achieving the desired outcome.

Level designers and/or concept artists may also be required

to provide a pre-rendered map of the level (or entire game
world) for the player.

Level design is necessary for two primary purposes -

providing players with a goal and providing players with
enjoyable play experience. Good level design strives to
produce quality game play, provide an immersive
experience, and sometimes, especially in story-based
games, to advance the storyline. Skilled use of textures and
audio is necessary to produce immersive player experience.

Game play alteration

Maps' design can significantly impact the game play. For
example, the game play may be shifted towards a
platformer (by careful placement of platforms) or a puzzle
game (by extensive use of buttons, keys, and doors). Some
FPS maps may be designed to prevent sniping by not
including any long hallways, while other maps may allow
for a mix of sniping and closer combat.

Gimmick maps are sometimes created to explore selected

features of game play, such as sniping or fist fighting.
While they are briefly useful to level designers and
interesting to experienced players, they are usually not
included in final list of levels of the game because of their
limited replay value.

Player directing
Levels are generally constructed with flow control in mind,
which is directing the player towards the goal of the level
and preventing confusion and idling. This can be
accomplished by various means.

Often the level layouts features power-ups and items

aligned in path and combinations that collecting them
inevitably progresses the game and advances the story-line.
This is one of the basic player direction techniques and is
most often seen in platformers.

Lighting and illumination, as well as distinctly colored

objects are often used to unambiguously steer the player
towards the correct path. Similarly, clearly marked choke-
points can be introduced.

Another method is strategic placement of obstacles and

aesthetic environment props, which direct the player's
attention to "clear" paths instead. This is often used in
closed, "stuffed" environments.

Levels may be designed to force the players to explore the

map and advance. Most RTS maps give each player a
starting base, but will have resource distribution and
terrain features designed to draw players out of their base
and engage each other. Team play maps can provide
noticeable advantages to one team over another, when
designed poorly.

ART PRODUCTION:
Game art design is a subset of game development. It is the
process of creating the artistic aspects for video games.
Video game art design begins in the pre-production phase
of creating a video game. The video game artists are visual
artists involved from the conception of the game and they
make rough sketches of the characters, setting, objects,
etc. These starting concept designs can also be created by
the game designers before the game is moved into
actualization. Sometimes these are concept designs are
called “programmer art”. After the rough sketches are
completed and the game is ready to be moved forward
those artists or more artists are brought in to bring these
sketches to life through graphic design.

The art design of a game can involve anywhere from two

people and up. The larger the gaming company is the more
people there are likely designing a game. Small gaming
companies tend not to have as many artists meaning that
their artist must be skilled in several types of art
development, whereas the larger the company, although an
artist can be skilled in several types of development, the
roles each artist plays becomes more specialized.

A game's artwork included in media, such as demos and

screenshots, has a significant impact on customers,
because artwork can be judged from previews, while game
play cannot.

Artists work closely with designers on what is needed for

the game.

Tools used for art design and production are art tools.
These can range from pen and paper to full software
packages for both 2D and 3D art. A developer may employ a
tools team responsible for art production applications. This
includes using existing software packages and creating
custom exporters and plug-ins for them.

AUDIO PRODUCTION:
Game audio may be separated into three categories—sound
effects, music, and voice-over.

Sound effect production is the production of sounds by

either tweaking a sample to a desired effect or replicating
it with real objects. Sound effects are important and
impact the game's delivery.

Music may be synthesized or performed live.

There are several ways in which music is presented in a

game.

 Music may be ambient, especially for slow periods of

game, where the music aims to reinforce the aesthetic
mood and game setting.
 Music may be triggered by in-game events. For example,
in such games as Pac-Man or Mario, player picking up
power-ups triggered respective musical scores.
 Action music, such as chase, battle or hunting sequences
is fast-paced, hard-changing score.

 Menu music, similar to credits music, creates aural

impact while relatively little action is taking place.

A game title with 20 hours of single-player game play may

feature around 60 minutes of music.

Voice-overs and voice acting creates character game play

interactivity. Voice acting adds personality to the game's
characters.

Video game sound design is the art of creating and adding

audio elements to a video game.

This involves creating entire libraries of custom sound

effects to give the game a sense of realism and uniqueness.

The sound effects must then be implemented properly to

the images that will be seen by the player.

Anyone who has had a game’s audio not working properly,

such as a silent explosion or dialogue, knows how
important sound effects are.

Even the earliest video games used what little technical

resources they had to add sounds and make the game more
attractive.

A sound designer is the person who generates and

manipulates audio elements for the game.

While there are a few key differences, the role of a sound

designer in the gaming industry is similar in many ways to
that of television production, theatre, and filmmaking.
Without someone to actually create the music and sound
effects for a game, everyone would have to use the same
existing sounds.

It’s All about Teamwork

The goal of the sound designer is to work together with the

design and animation team to create rich audio that fits
the virtual experience being developed.

Unlike the previous industries we mentioned, games are

interactive and thus do not have fixed sound and music.

This means that the sound designer must create several

layers of audio that matches the player’s choices and
movement that each sound effect and music track is
appropriate to what is taking place on-screen.

Video game sound designers also often collaborate with

composers to help create and edit music for the game.
Since many composers are outsourced, it’s the sound
designer’s responsibility to make sure they understand the
vision of the game and what direction the music should go.

Sound designers also have the task of testing the game

during the late stages of development to catch any audio
bugs or mistakes.

Sound designers do almost all of their work on computers.

Different computer programs and applications are needed

to create, manipulate, and store sound effects for games.
Today there are many different tools that sound designers
can take advantage of.

While most programs cost money to use, there are plenty

of free tools out there.
The Importance of Video Game Audio
It only takes a few seconds of playing your favorite game
on mute to realize how important sound is when it comes
to creating a captivating experience.

From basic sounds like a gun reloading to iconic jingles like

when you solve a puzzle in any The Legend of Zelda game,
sound effects are there to make the virtual characters,
stories, and worlds we are playing come alive.

Much like films and television shows, music is also very

important in video games and is often one of the most
beloved elements of our favorite titles.

Long after we’ve set aside the games that made up our
childhood, just hearing their soundtrack again years later
can fill us with joy and nostalgia.

The Process of Creating Audio for Games

Since every game is developed differently, there’s really no
one single process that every sound designer follow.

In fact, studios differ when it comes to what stage in

development they begin the music and sound production
work. Some get started right away by explaining to the
sound designer what the game will be and maybe showing
some concept art or levels being made.
Others are brought in when there’s already a playable build
with art, which means they get a solid taste of the look and
feel of the game before getting to work.

Either way, the sound designer usually gets started by

creating a library of sound effects that are needed in the
game.

During this time the sound designer might also work

together with a composer to nail down the soundtrack of
the game. If the game has voice-acting, it’s their job to
make sure it fits well with the game and is implemented
correctly.

As audio elements are added to the game’s engine, the

sound designer also tests to make sure they work as
intended.

Audio design involves the process of creating or

incorporating all of the sounds that are in the game, like
sound effects or voice acting.

TESTING:
At the end of the project, quality assurance plays a
significant role. Testers start work once anything is
playable. This may be one level or subset of the game
software that can be used to any reasonable extent. Early
on, testing a game occupies a relatively small amount of
time. Testers may work on several games at once. As
development draws to a close, a single game usually
employs many testers full-time (and often with overtime).
They strive to test new features and regression test
existing ones. Testing is vital for modern, complex games
as single changes may lead to catastrophic consequences.

At this time features and levels are being finished at the

highest rate and there is more new material to be tested
than during any other time in the project. Testers need to
carry out regression testing to make sure that features that
have been in place for months still operate correctly.
Regression testing is one of the vital tasks required for
effective software development. As new features are
added, subtle changes to the codebase can produce
unexpected changes in different portions of the game. This
task is often overlooked, for several reasons. Sometimes,
when a feature is implemented and tested, it is considered
"working" for the rest of the project and little attention is
given to repeated testing. Also, features that are added
late in development are prioritized and existing features
often receive insufficient testing time. Proper regression
testing is also increasingly expensive as the number of
features increases and is often not scheduled correctly.

Despite the dangers of overlooking regression testing, some

game developers and publishers fail to test the full feature
suite of the game and ship a game with bugs. This can
result in customer’s dissatisfaction and failure to meet
sales goals. When this does happen, most developers and
publishers quickly release patches that fix the bugs and
make the game fully playable again.

The testing stage is a critical component of the game

development process. And in addition, revealing potential
bugs in the program, for example, in-game objects not
running legitimately. It should likewise check for
irregularities in the fictional structure of the game,
consistency of artwork, and additionally be testing the
game play – is the game connecting with, too simple, or too
hard, for instance.

A game tester is somebody who works for video game

development organizations to altogether test the games
before the ultimate version is delivered to the market.
Game testers are required for each genre and platform.
Testers get an adaption of a game that is near its last
stages. They should then play the game in various
circumstances, many times, from beginning to end, keeping
in mind the end goal to find bugs or defects inside the
game.

Key Game Tester Responsibilities:

A game tester’s principal duty is to guarantee the quality
assurance of software by playing the game in as many
forms as could be expected under the different
circumstances. Here are various responsibilities and actions
that a game tester might be associated with –

 Figure out how to be repetitive and also remarkable.

Fundamentally, you’re attempting to break the game.
 Test distinctive adaptations of the games including
console and computer versions if accessible.

 Focus on specific portions of the game and attempt each

probability available.

 Play games utilizing different settings and alternatives if

accessible.

 Check for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and

language.

 Proof some other documentation with the game

including manuals, directions, and different booklets.

 Report any error code that may pop up as well as

reporting them to bug tracking system.

 Comprehend the contrast between revealing a bug and

reporting a component.

 Play and test the game over and over again in various
ways and conditions.

 Analyze new versions of the game and repeat earlier

bugs to check whether they have been settled.
How to distinguish amongst good and bad game testers?
They are qualified by level of interest, thoroughness, and
examination. To be a committed game tester, one needs to
utilize these aptitudes legitimately, have the capacity to
write relating test cases, sort out steady test suites and
make precisely clear bug records.

6 Steps of the game testing are as follows –

 Plan and Outline the Test – Although quite a bit of this

plan is done before in programming test plan document,
still with each new prototype of the game, this
document should be returned to upgrade any adjustment
in the test cases, specifications, new setup support. The
game tester ought to guarantee that no new issues were
presented.

 Set up the Test – All the teams should upgrade their

code, documents, tests, and test environment and
regulate it with each other. The test development group
should mark the bugs settled, and the test time taken to
confirm.

 Play out the Test – Run the test suit once more. In the
event that any bug is discovered, test around the error
to ensure that the bug is real.

 Report the Outcomes – Complete insights about the bugs

are reported.
 Repair the Bug – The game testing team engages in this
step by uncovering the bug to the development team and
gives direct testing to track the bug

 Come back to Stage 1 and Retest – A new build is

delivered after one cycle

POST PRODUCTION:

After the game goes gold and ships, some developers will
give team members comp time (perhaps up to a week or
two) to compensate for the overtime put in to complete
the game, though this compensation is not standard.

Once the game is complete, it enters the postproduction

phase. This phase includes extensive testing, review,
marketing and finally, distribution.

Testing

The job of the testers is to play the game repeatedly to

find all the mistakes, or "bugs." Problems are prioritized in
many ways, from "fatal" bugs which must be resolved
immediately, to minor issues which may or may not affect
the game's release. When a problem is discovered, a
detailed report is sent back to the developers and the error
is corrected.
The first version sent to testers is called the "alpha"
version, and it is tested to detect any major flaws in the
game while they are still relatively easy to fix. Once all of
the major flaws are addressed, a "beta" version is released,
often to a larger group of testers that sometimes includes
the public. The beta version is exhaustively tested, fixed
and re-released until the developers are satisfied that the
game is ready for primetime.

Usually during this testing phase, a copy of the game is sent

to the Entertainment Software Rating Board to be given a
rating. These ratings are intended to give consumers an
idea of the content of the game and its appropriateness for
different age groups.

Maintenance:
Once game ships, the maintenance phase for the video
game begins.

Games developed for video game consoles have had almost

no maintenance period in the past. The shipped game
would forever house as many bugs and features as when
released. This was common for consoles since all consoles
had identical or nearly identical hardware; making
incompatibility, the cause of many bugs, a non-issue. In
this case, maintenance would only occur in the case of a
port, sequel, or enhanced remake that reuses a large
portion of the engine and assets.

In recent times popularity of online console games has

grown, and online capable video game consoles and online
services such as Xbox Live for the Xbox have developed.
Developers can maintain their software through
downloadable patches. These changes would not have been
possible in the past without the widespread availability of
the Internet.

PC development is different. Game developers try to

account for majority of configurations and hardware.
However, the number of possible configurations of
hardware and software inevitably leads to discovery of
game-breaking circumstances that the programmers and
testers didn't account for.

Programmers wait for a period to get as many bug reports

as possible. Once the developer thinks they've obtained
enough feedback, the programmers start working on a
patch. The patch may take weeks or months to develop,
but it's intended to fix most accounted bugs and problems
with the game that were overlooked past code release, or
in rare cases, fix unintended problems caused by previous
patches. Occasionally a patch may include extra features or
content or may even alter game play.

In the case of a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG),

such as a MMORPG or MMORTS, the shipment of the game is
the starting phase of maintenance. Such online games are
in continuous maintenance as the game world is
continuously changed and iterated and new features are
added. The maintenance staff for a popular MMOG can
number in the dozens, sometimes including members of the
original programming team.

After the testing phase is completed, the software product

is released and the longest phase in the software
development cycle begins: the maintenance phase. As with
Testing, in order to understand how maintenance is used in
the video game industry, one must first examine how
maintenance is used in the computer software industry in
general. Maintenance in the software development industry
can be defined as “all the actions that are needed to keep
software in such a running order that it achieves all its
objectives from the beginning until the end of the usage”.
The maintenance phase is an important part of the
software development cycle. On average, two thirds of a
Product’s total cost is spent on maintenance.

Maintenance can be a tiresome, thankless job, as the

maintenance programmers are left to deal with all the bugs
and other issues that arise after a piece of software is
released. Most of the time, the rest of the development
staff moves on to their next project and leaves the
maintenance team alone to deal with all the issues that
arise. A maintenance programmer sometimes has very little
documentation to work with since by the time a software
project is released, all the design specification and
requirements documents are either gone or misplaced, and
the only hints as to how a program works are the comments
in the code itself, which can often be of little to no value if
the original programmer did not leave thorough comments
in his or her code Maintenance can be a tedious, difficult,
and extremely time consuming activity, yet many reasons
exist to perform maintenance on a finished piece of
software.

MILESTONES:

A video game in development is a living entity. Every time

one of the team members takes a shower and has a blast, a
new idea appears. If this idea is good enough and added to
the to-do list the game direction will vary a little bit. After
a year or more of development if there is no way to control
the game direction, the sum of every tiny variation might
just have changed the whole face of the initial game
concept putting a lot of distance between the game idea
and the actual game. Worse, the team can even end up lost
and trapped into the infamous limbo of eternal game
development with no hope of ever ending the game
production.

To avoid this kind of tricky situation it’s considered

healthier to divide the development into milestones. The
duration between two milestones can vary from a very
small amount (~a week) to a larger one (2 months +).
Among all these milestones it’s better to define important
ones acting like pillars for the production.
Commercial game development projects may be required
to meet milestones set by publisher. Milestones mark major
events during game development and are used to track
game's progress. Such milestones may be, for example,
first playable, alpha, or beta game versions. Project
milestones depend on the developer schedules.

Milestones are usually based on multiple short descriptions

for functionality; examples may be "Player roaming around
in game environment" or "Physics working, collisions,
vehicle" etc. (numerous descriptions are possible). These
milestones are usually how the developer gets paid;
sometimes as "an advance against royalty". These
milestones are listed, anywhere from three to twenty
depending on developer and publisher. The milestone list is
usually a collaborative agreement between the publisher
and developer.

The developer usually advocates for making the milestone

descriptions as simple as possible; depending on the
specific publisher - the milestone agreements may get very
detailed for a specific game. It is a collaborative
agreement between publisher and developer and usually
(but not always) the developer is constrained by heavy
monthly development expenses that need to be met. Also,
sometimes milestones are "swapped", the developer or
publisher may mutually agree to amend the agreement and
rearrange milestone goals depending on changing
requirements and development resources available.
Milestone agreements are usually included as part of the
legal development contracts. After each "milestone" there
is usually a payment arrangement. Some very established
developers may simply have a milestone agreement based
on the amount of time the game is in development
(monthly / quarterly) and not specific game functionality -
this is not as common as detailed functionality "milestone
lists".

There is no industry standard for defining milestones, and

such vary depending on publisher, year, or project. Some
common milestones for two-year development cycle are as
follows:

Prototype:
This first step of development is essential, it comes right
before the actual production begins and is here to test your
core concept and idea. With a good prototype you should
be well aware of dangers on your way to success and ready
to tackle them. It’s the first milestone but also the only
one where you can stop everything. If the results to the
tests done during the prototyping phase are good you know
you can try to make a good game out of them. However it’s
important to stop everything and kill or re-think the idea if
the prototype shows some flaws or problems. If you still
have doubts when the prototype is supposed to be finished,
don’t go to the next milestone and re-think the core
concept of your game. More important, don’t give you
more time to add features to your prototype; you would
end up adding crap on top of crappy foundations.

One month or two spent on the prototype should be enough

to know where your game is going.

First playable
Once the prototype is good and validated, the next logical
step is called the First Playable. It’s obviously the first
playable version of the game. Not really an alpha yet,
because not complete enough, but not a prototype,
because cleaner and more complete. The first playable
version aims to show the real guts of the game more than
the sole concept. The first playable doesn’t offer the
complete flow of the game: the main menu is often
missing, there is no real player ranking, no real story… but
the main elements are here and playable.

The first playable is the game version containing

representative game play and assets; this is the first
version with functional major game play elements. It is
often based on the prototype created in pre-production.
Alpha and first playable are sometimes used to refer to a
single milestone, however large projects require first
playable before feature complete alpha. First playable
occurs 12 to 18 months before code release. It is
sometimes referred to as the "Pre-Alpha" stage.

Also one of the most visible difference between the first

playable and the prototype is about art. While it’s normal
to use placeholder and ugly assets in the prototype,
everything should be replaced by prettier assets, even if
not final.

At the end of this milestone you should have something

show able to potential investors without having to warn
them about the disastrous bugs and temporary arts. At this
point there is enough content to even understand what will
be the story.

From 3 months to 6 months or more, the duration of this

milestone will vary greatly from a game concept to
another.
Alpha
Alpha is the stage when key game play functionality is
implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in
alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and
contains all the major features. These features may be
further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional
small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but
unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers
focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than
implementing additions. Alpha occurs eight to ten months
before code release, but this can vary significantly based
on the scope of content and assets any given game has.

Of course it won’t be the complete game with all the

features. But enough features to show and let players
understand what the final game will be. In a car game, for
example, you won’t have every car available, but they will
be visible in the selection menu (sometimes with locks to
explain that they will come later).

Even if all the content is not here, the main game play is
available, thanks to the prototype and the first playable,
and the placeholders and extra features make the alpha
version look like a real and almost complete game.

Code freeze
Code freeze is the stage when new code is no longer added
to the game and only bugs are being corrected. Code
freeze occurs three to four months before code release.
Beta
Beta is feature and asset complete version of the game,
when only bugs are being fixed. This version contains no
bugs that prevent the game from being shippable. No
changes are made to the game features, assets, or code.
Beta occurs two to three months before code release.

Gold master
Gold master is the final game's build that is used as a
master for production of the game.

Release
Now that the game is ready to hit the virtual stores shelves
the hard work really begins. A lot of game developers
believe that once the development is over, the work is
finished. They are so wrong that the vast majority of them
learn the lesson the hard way. Releasing a game is
awesome, but useless if nobody is there to buy and play it.
Code release is the stage when many bugs are fixed and
game is ready to be shipped or submitted for console
manufacturer review. This version is tested against Quality
Assurance test plan. First code release candidate is usually
ready three to four weeks before code release.

ROLES:

Development team
Developers can range in size from small groups making
casual games to housing hundreds of employees and
producing several large titles. Companies divide their
subtasks of game's development. Individual job titles may
vary; however, roles are the same within the industry. The
development team consists of several members. Some
members of the team may handle more than one role;
similarly more than one task may be handled by the same
member. Team size can vary from 20 to 100 or more
members, depending on the game's scope. The most
represented are artists, followed by programmers, then
designers, and finally, audio specialists, with two to three
producers in management. These positions are employed
full-time. Other positions, such as testers, may be
employed only part-time. Salaries for these positions vary
depending on both the experience and the location of the
employee. An entry-level programmer can make, on
average, around $70,000 annually and an experienced
programmer can make, on average, around $125,000
annually.

A development team includes these roles or disciplines:

1. Designer
A game designer is a person who designs game play,
conceiving and designing the rules and structure of a game.
Development teams usually have a lead designer who
coordinates the work of other designers. They are the main
visionary of the game. One of the roles of a designer is
being a writer, often employed part-time to conceive
game's narrative, dialogue, commentary, cut scene
narrative, journals, video game packaging content, hint
system, etc. In larger projects, there are often separate
designers for various parts of the game, such as, game
mechanics, user interface, characters, dialogue, etc.

In every game project it all starts with the idea. But

without proper execution, the idea is worthless and at the
beginning it doesn't cost anything. Being one of the most
important roles in game dev, the game designer is the
person capable of bringing game ideas to life throughout
the iterations. He should have very strong organizational
skills to keep all assets and documents created and
organized in a way they can be understood by other game
dev team members.

1. Level Designer
Almost every game consists of multiple levels, which must
have a gradual difficulty increase, introduce new
mechanics on regular basis and be attractive. The job of
the level designer is to literally bring worlds developed by
game and story designers to life. If the level is boring,
there’s a lot of backtracking, the mechanics are way too
repetitive, there are unexpected difficulty problems — the
level designer is the first one to blame.

A level designer is a person who creates levels, challenges

or missions for computer and/or video games using a
specific set of programs. These programs may be commonly
available commercial 3D or 2D design programs, or
specially designed and tailored level editors made for a
specific game.

Level designers work with both incomplete and complete

versions of the game. Game programmers usually produce
level editors and design tools for the designers to use. This
eliminates the need for designers to access or modify game
code. Level editors may involve custom high-level scripting
languages for interactive environments or AI’s. As opposed
to the level editing tools sometimes available to the
community, level designers often work with placeholders
and prototypes aiming for consistency and clear layout
before required artwork are completed.

2. Programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily
develops video games or related software (such as game
development tools). The game's codebase development is
handled by programmers. There are usually one to several
lead programmers, who implement the game's starting
codebase and overview future development and
programmer allocation on individual modules.

Individual programming disciplines roles include:

Physics – the programming of the game engine, including

simulating physics, collision, object movement, etc.;
AI – producing computer agents using game AI
techniques, such as scripting, planning, rule-based
decisions, etc.

Graphics – the managing of graphical content utilization

and memory considerations; the production of graphics
engine, integration of models, textures to work along the
physics engine.

Sound – integration of music, speech, effect sounds into

the proper locations and times.

Game play – implementation of various games rules and

features (sometimes called a generalist);
Scripting – development and maintenance of high-level
command system for various in-game tasks, such as AI,
level editor triggers, etc.

UI – production of user interface elements, like option

menus, HUDs, help and feedback systems, etc.

Input processing – processing and compatibility

correlation of various input devices, such as keyboard,
mouse, gamepad, etc.

Network communications – the managing of data inputs

and outputs for local and internet game play.

Game tools – the production of tools to accompany the

development of the game, especially for designers and
scripters.

3. Game Developer
Though there can be more categories of developers,
depending on the tech used by the studio, we initially
assume that modern indie game studios use 3rd party game
engines like Unity3D or Unreal Engine, because there’s
little justification these days to develop own game engine.
So, in our case anyone on the team that participates in
coding is called a game developer. Developers are
responsible for creating logic and game entities’ behavior
as described by the design team as well as developing any
tools that will be used in the process.

4. Render Engineer
Creation of every game is a never-ending battle for the
resources. Minimizing memory requirements, minimizing
draw calls number, optimizing shaders, combining meshes,
textures. Optimization is a very delicate matter because
almost always it is a trade-off between visuals’ quality and
performance, so it has to be carried out by the experienced
professionals, who know how the image rendering actually
works. The problem of using modern middleware like Unity
or Unreal Engine is that they encapsulate much of the
under-the-hood processes away from the user and in
theory, one could create “something that works” without
knowing the basics, which usually leads to dramatic results.
Therefore rendering engineer in your team must most likely
be the most experienced person, who attempted to write
custom game engine previously.

5. Concept Artist (2D Artist)

Concept artists are there to avoid such situations. This
person works closely with the game designer throughout
the project to bring his vision to drawings.

6. Texture Artist
The number of textures in modern games exceeds all
possible and imaginable limits. While production of some
textures can be somewhat automated, the original source
textures must be painted manually. Painting textures
requires a lot of experience because they have to be
looking good when scaled and transformed, most of the
textures should be seamlessly tiled. A typical game has
thousands of textures, so it is a great piece of work. The
texture artist should have a better understanding of tech
behind the game development process to produce good-
looking results.
 7. 3D Artist
Most of the recent games are created in 3D and most 2D
games use 3D models as the source material, so having
good 3D models ready is really important. The catch here is
that not every 3D model works for games. 3D artists should
follow a single rule: use fewer triangles. They also need to
be clearly aware of the conditions under which 3D models
are used, the size of final rendered objects, camera angle,
etc.

8. 3D Animator
While some 3D models can be animated directly in the
game engine, the abilities of built-in engine animation are
quite limited, so most of the complex animations are
created with professional software like Autodesk’s 3DS Max
or Maya. This person should know how to work with rigging
and IK. Most AAA game titles use motion capture
techniques for characters’ animations, but MoCap (Motion
Capture) facilities are unavailable to indie studios.

9. Sound engineer
Sound engineers are technical professionals responsible for
sound effects and sound positioning. They sometimes
oversee voice acting and other sound asset creation.
Composers who create a game's musical score also comprise
a game's sound team, though often this work is outsourced.

No modern game can exist without sound effects. There are

explosions, environmental and ambient sounds; almost
every game object has its own sounds. Can you imagine
what a space engine should sound like? Can you find
something similar in the real world? How does a robot’s
movement should sound like? Which sounds should blade
swing consist of? Well, most of us would struggle with all of
this, but not sound engineers. These are not only the
people who can properly master sound file using DAW, but
they also select and create sounds for objects that often do
not exist in the real world. They are not technical, but
creative workers, much like artists.

10. Music Engineer/Composer

Just as with sounds, most of games require music
environment for a deeper player engagement. Additionally,
some games use procedural music which follows the game’s
situation and plot tension and changes its pace. That’s the
way to “full custom”. There are some tools that might help
you produce music in-house. One could easily work with
Apple’s Logic Pro X and its extensive bundled sound
libraries as the only DAW tool. Of course, depending on the
music style there are better instruments out there.

11. Project Manager

In order to carefully monitor budgets, stick to timelines
and keep teams synchronized a dedicated person is
required. The project manager organizes work and
processes between different departments. High
organizational skills are a must for this position as well as
the ability to find compromises between
challenging departments of a game development company.

12. Tester
The quality assurance is carried out by game testers. A
game tester analyzes video games to document software
defects as part of a quality control. Testing is a highly
technical field requiring computing expertise, and analytic
competence.

The testers ensure that the game falls within the proposed
design: it both works and is entertaining. This involves
testing of all features, compatibility, localization, etc.
Although, necessary throughout the whole development
process, testing is expensive and is often actively utilized
only towards the completion of the project.

 Producer
Development is overseen by internal and external
producers. The producer working for the developer is
known as the internal producer and manages the
development team, schedules, reports progress, hires and
assigns staff, and so on. The producer working for the
publisher is known as the external producer and oversees
developer progress and budget. Producer's responsibilities
include PR, contract negotiation, liaising between the staff
and stakeholders, schedule and budget maintenance,
quality assurance, beta test management, and localization.
This role may also be referred to as project manager,
project lead, or director.

An internal producer is heavily involved in the development

of, usually, a single game. Responsibilities for this position
vary from company to company, but in general, the person
in this position has the following duties:

 Negotiating contracts, including licensing deals

 Acting as a liaison between the development staff and
the upper stakeholders (publisher or executive staff)

 Developing and maintaining schedules and budgets

 Overseeing creative (art and design) and technical
development (game programming) of the game

 Ensuring timely delivery of deliverables (such as

milestones)

 Scheduling timely quality assurance (testing)

 Arranging for beta testing and focus groups, if applicable

 Arranging for localization

 Pitching game ideas to publishers

In short, the internal producer is ultimately responsible for

timely delivery and final quality of the game.

For small games, the producer may interact directly with

the programming and creative staff. For larger games, the
producer will seek the assistance of the lead programmer,
art lead, game designer and testing lead. While it is
customary for the producer to meet with the entire
development staff from time to time, for larger games,
they will only meet with the leads on a regular basis to
keep updated on the development status. In smaller
studios, a producer may fill any slack in the production
team by doing the odd job of writing the game manual or
producing game assets.

For most games, the producer does not have a large role
but does have some influence on the development of the
video game design. While not a game designer, the
producer has to weave the wishes of the publisher or upper
management into the design. They usually seek the
assistance of the game designer in this effort. So the final
game design is a result the effort of the designer and some
influence of the producer.

 Publisher

A video game publisher is a company that publishes video

games that they have either developed internally or have
had developed by an external video game developer. As
with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video
game publishers are responsible for their product's
manufacturing and marketing, including market research
and all aspects of advertising.

They usually finance the development, sometimes by

paying a video game developer (the publisher calls this
external development) and sometimes by paying an
internal staff of developers called a studio. Consequently,
they also typically own the Intellectual Property rights (IP)
of the game. Large video game publishers also distribute
the games they publish, while some smaller publishers
instead hire distribution companies (or larger video game
publishers) to distribute the games they publish.
Other functions usually performed by the publisher include
deciding on and paying for any license that the game may
utilize; paying for localization; layout, printing, and
possibly the writing of the user manual; and the creation of
graphic design elements such as the box design.

Because the publisher usually finances development, it

usually tries to manage development risk with a staff of
producers or project managers to monitor the progress of
the developer, critique ongoing development, and assist as
necessary. Most video games created by an external video
game developer are paid for with periodic advances on
royalties. These advances are paid when the developer
reaches certain stages of development, called milestones.

Independent video game developers create games without

a publisher and may choose to digitally distribute their
games.

OVERVIEW
Video game development is a hybrid field, drawing from
the fields of computer science, mathematics, and
production. All things considered, the occupations with
development studios that are accessible or available game
development graduates are similarly diverse. Games are
created through the software development process.
Development of a game is usually funded by a publisher.
The games which are well made to bring benefits and
profits more readily. However, it is important to estimate a
game's financial requirements, for example, development
costs of individual features. Neglecting to give clear
implications of game's expectations may bring about
surpassing the allocated budget. Indeed, most of
commercial games do not produce profit.

The game industry requires innovations. Every year new

independent development companies open and some
manage to develop hit titles. Also, numerous developers
close down on the grounds that they can't find a publishing
contract or their production isn't beneficial. It is hard to
begin a new organization or company because of high initial
investment that is required. In any case, development of
casual and mobile game market has enabled designers with
smaller teams to enter the market. When the companies
become monetarily or financially steady and stable, they
may expand to develop bigger games. Most game
developers start small and slowly or gradually extend their
business.

Video game development is a diverse field; it is a hybrid of

game production and game design and has requisite skills
from both fields forming the core of a video game
developer's knowledge. A computer game developer is
typically a major picture position in the development of a
computer game, directing the project through various
stages. That being the situation, a computer game
developer is a combination of a producer and a
programmer, they are a coordinating administrator with an
artistic vision who also possesses the technical skill to
oversee and contribute to software engineering, image
rendering, editing and other aspects of game design.

An average game development spending plan or budget for

a multiplatform game is US$18-28M, with prominent or high
profile games frequently surpassing $40M.
In the early period of home PCs and game consoles in the
early 1980s, a single developer could deal with practically
all the tasks of developing a game — programming,
graphical design, sound effects, etc. It could take as little
time as about a month and a half to build up a game.
However, the high user expectations and requirements of
modern commercial games far exceed the capabilities of a
single developer and require the splitting of
responsibilities. A group of over a hundred people are
employed full-time for a single game development project.

Game development, production, or design is a procedure

that begins from a thought or idea. Frequently the thought
depends on an alteration of a current game idea. The game
idea may fall inside one or a few classifications or genres.
Game designers frequently explore different combinations
of genres. A game designer for the most part composes an
underlying game proposal document that portrays the
essential idea, interactivity, game play, feature list,
setting and story, the target audience, prerequisites or
requirements or schedule, and lastly staff and budget
estimates. Various organizations have distinctive formal
systems and methods and philosophies regarding the design
and development of video games. There is no standardized
development method; anyway shared traits or
commonalities exist.

A game developer may range from a single individual to a

large multinational company. There are both independent
and published owned studios. The indie developers depend
on monetary help from game publishers. They for the most
part need to build up a game from idea to model without
outer funding. The formal game proposition or proposal is
then submitted to publishers, who may fund the game
development from months to years. The publisher would
retain exclusive rights to distribute and market the game
and would often own the intellectual property rights for
the game franchise. Publisher's company may also own the
developer's company, or it may have internal development
studio(s).

Video game console manufacturers, for example, Microsoft,

Nintendo, or Sony, have a standard arrangement of
specialized prerequisites or requirements that a game must
conform or comply with so as to be approved. Moreover,
the game idea must be accepted by the manufacturer, who
may decline to confirm or approve certain game titles.
Most present day PC or console games take from one to
three years to finish, where as a mobile games can be
created in a couple of months. The length of development
is impacted by various factors, for example, genre, scale,
development platform and number of assets.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. http://www.gamedev.net/

2. http://www.devmaster.com/

3. https://www.gamasutra.com/

4.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development
 5. https://www.gamedesigning.org/video-game-
development/

6. https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-
history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/

7.
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-
of-video-games

8.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_design

9. https://www.edx.org/xseries/video-game-design

10. https://www.gamedesigning.org/learn/video-
game-sound/

11.
https://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/how-to-
become-a-video-game-sound-designer/

12. https://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Video-
Game-
Programmerhttps://www.geteducated.com/career-
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13. https://gametester.co/

14. http://lvictorino.com/blog/five-gates-
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