Android is the biggest and a leading OS platform on which various mobile applications are developed for diverse industries and all business verticals. Android game development is an intricate process and involves many stages. Thus, It has been saddling the developers with myriad challenges on every step of its way but it also fascinates them to craft creative and immersive games.

An analysis made by Statista gave information on the number of available gaming apps in the Google Play app store. As of September 2020, there were three million forty thousand apps on Google Play Store and approximately three hundred eighty five thousand five hundred and fifty one of them were mobile gaming apps that is a 5.6 percent increase compared to the previous quarter. 

With 2020, we witnessed the pandemic, the lockdown, and a time when people were working from home, staying at home, maintaining social distancing, and to curb boredom, they turned to gaming and other entertainment sources. This had a lashing impact on the popularity and growth of the gaming industry in all positive ways. Nevertheless, the developers have to face intimidating challenges in some or the other ways. Let’s talk about a few of them here.

1. Understanding the client’s perspective comes as a challenge for many developers. Providers of game development services try to understand the client’s requirement and deliver it at their best. This becomes difficult at times when some clients themselves are unsure about what they want.

2. With every year Google releasing a new version of Android makes it tough for developers to design apps that support the features of the latest versions of the Android operating system. Thus, making the adoption rate of the latest android versions slow.

3. Customer retention is indispensable for any game or app. Users landing on your game or app is fine but what if they leave and do not return. What’s the point of such customer engagement? Effective gamer engagement is when the gamers find a game interesting and engaging so they return to the game. The developers have to understand the reasons that make the gamers want to leave and work towards giving them reasons to stay.

Bugs, lack of gamification, complicated interface, better alternatives, etc. are the most probable reasons for withdrawal. Maintenance of the game by fixing bugs, improving load time, and launching new updates of the game with new levels, characters, design, elements, etc. has to be taken care of to keep the excitement going in the game. The user reviews can serve as guiding stones for obviating bugs and implementing ideas.

4. Marketing presents your game in their most valuable form to the audience. Having an Inadequate marketing budget when you have oodles of ideas and plans to execute can be discouraging. We know even if your game is the best, it would make you no money if no one plays it. Some of the most interesting games have failed due to bad marketing strategies. And, marketing, branding, and promotion with a good budget is a requirement to make any game go viral and acquire gamers.

5. Other than that, optimizing a game's title and description on the search engines is a task. To popularize a game online, it is absolutely necessary for a game to position as the first few results in the search engine. Press releases are one way to make gamers aware of the new game in the market. App Indexing by Google lets the app’s content or the game’s content appear in the search results in Chrome on mobile devices. These strategies can help obtain more downloads and new users for your game in order to establish a community. Customer loyalty must be promoted via gamification, notifications, rewards or the like, to get the users to try your game and these act as good reasons for gamers to return to the game.

6. Every user has millions of options of Android games on Google Play Store, most are free and some are paid. This makes it difficult for developers to make a game that stands out from the rest and attain more downloads. This is where app store optimization strategy plays a role in enhancing a games visibility. This strategy includes choosing the right name, a unique game icon, using the right keywords in the game’s description, with high quality pictures and videos for promotion. Aggressive promotion of the game can really make or break the deal for any game.

7. Android has a staggering global market presence and this makes it susceptible to security attacks. These security issues are fixed by the security updates released by Google but the other security problems that arise due to the changes made to stock android are not addressed by Google updates. It is crucial to protect the game and the user data on it and hence the developers have to keep in mind to build a game that has strong security and advanced encryption mechanism. Every game requires players to provide their information and it is the responsibility of the game development company to ensure the security of that information and data.

8. Any project without research and analysis will be incomplete with faults and loopholes. Hence, even though it is difficult for a game developer to produce a well-researched game, it is unquestionably necessary to make an intuitive and user-friendly game after good research so that it reaches maximum users.

9. Android gives us a variety of device ratios varying from 4:3 to 16:9. Then, the resolution for Android and iOS are very different from each other. Thus, cross-platform developers face the challenge to provide the same user experience to every user at different screen size devices, resolutions and aspect ratios.

Content scaling ensures that the game logic and mechanics are equal on different devices, so design your game first for the lowest resolution (called the logical resolution) that you want to support, and then scale it up as a whole on larger resolutions so that it perfectly fits in the device screen. Here, when the screen is scaled up there is a chance of images getting blurry. As for the blurred out images are concerned, big images could be used and effectively scaled down to lower resolution devices. This is called smart asset selection. In this case, a lot of memory is wasted and running out of it could be an issue so it is preferred to load a different version of the image, depending on the size that’s required for the current device.

10. It is arduous for a developer to make a game that truly fulfills its motive and is not complicated to understand and play. This might happen when there’s overspill of ideas and features in a game (Feature creep) as the focus gets veered. To avoid this, launching a game in phases is something that can help. And, beta release will assist in getting feedback that can be used to overcome the drawbacks of the game and ensuring that the core essence of the game is not lost and the experience for the gamer is user-friendly. 

With this in mind, Logic Simplified provides android game development services and helps clients create innovative android games and overcome emerging challenges and security threats. Our team understands that when an Android game is developed, it is crucial that it anticipates and supports different possible player experiences, and increases gameplay flexibility to reach maximum gamers. Game development is an intimidating task and with new innovations happening everyday, it demands time, money, patience, and the zeal to combat challenges. If you’re looking to hire the right team of game app developers for your game idea, Contact us or email at enquiry@logicsimplified.com and we will help you in the best possible way.

Source: Vexxhost.com

With compelling hardware and advanced tools available today in the market, mobile game development is growing by leaps and bounds and so is the user engagement for video games. That’s how choosing the right tools, engines and platforms for the game becomes essential and helps build breathtaking entertainment (games). Gameplay and storyline with suitable engine, graphic, and development tools are important too. Having that in mind, Android supports all sorts of creativity and innovation that app developers want to add to their games. 

Unlike the old days, the present is about experimenting with disparate technologies - Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented reality, and others. Undoubtedly, these ingenuities have redefined a myriad of modern industries and the gaming industry is no exception.  

All that goes into building a game for today’s gamers

Ease of availability and accessibility can work really well for a product in the market. And, in case of Android games, its compatibility with different platforms works in its favour by increasing the spectrum of market reach and the user-experience for such games. Adding to that, the production of cross-platform games is also cost-effective. Despite that, the game designers have to ensure that the look and feel of the game is the same across various platforms.   

As for Virtual reality? The 3D graphics, multi projected environments, 360 degree view contributes to providing the players and immersive gameplay. With VR, players find the power to experience and manipulate the virtual gaming environment using VR accessories and devices like sensor-equipped gloves, VR gaming headsets and goggles, hand controllers, gloves, and more. The VR headsets give the player an impression of being somewhere else by blocking out the surrounding. Similarly, different VR accessories add value to the game in their own way. 

Unlike VR, Augmented reality does not replace a vision but adds to it with 2D and 3D model support, motion detection, and an advanced vision. AR devices overlay images over what a person is already looking at and builds experiences using the surroundings. The games even change accordingly to fit the space. AR mixes real world with the virtual and lets players interact personally with the digital environment. It is capable of producing endless possibilities, creative  games, and new innovations in gaming with huge benefits. With 3D tracking, geolocation, smart glasses support, and more, AR is growing and bringing extraordinary Android games for us.

It’s been a day or two since the news came out of Facebook rolling out a cloud gaming service. However, it’s not the first to come up with this idea but definitely the first one to offer this service for free.

There is a speedy growth in the number of mobile gamers which draws our attention towards the importance of integrating cloud computing services into Android mobile gaming (Cloud gaming). With digital media, users are looking to keep security issues in check and Cloud provides just that. It saves and protects the gamer’s data and progress in a game that is backed up with industrial security standards that takes care of all security concerns by blocking external attacks and hackers. It contributes to creating valuable innovations for an enriched gaming experience. That’s not it, better security, easy access to a library of interactive entertainment from anywhere and on any device, and increased compatibility are something it assures. It keeps pace with the expectations of today's users. Reduced cost is another benefit that comes along Cloud computing. It allows gaming companies to scale up or down as per their needs so that people only pay for resources that they need and use.

Reports say that it’s estimated that the number of active IoT devices will surpass 30.73 billion in 2020 and by 2025, there will be 152,200 IoT devices connecting to the internet per minute.

Source: Data Prot

The developers have used the Internet of Things aggressively to make games enveloping and engaging than ever by connecting one another’s consoles. Times have changed since playing video games was a solitary activity to now it has become a social activity that people do together. The multiplayer modes in games and IoT have allowed players to connect along with their devices, to play and interact at the same time. Not only that but IoT also offers exceptional playability. IoT has hastened the development of mobile Android games and developers are using sensors, advanced software and hardware capabilities, cameras, accelerometers to make gaming seamless and enjoyable. Players have now been able to connect to not just the game but the other devices and platforms which is considered a next-level opportunity and a life-like experience.

According to Research and Markets, this casino gaming market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.16% between 2017 and 2021, and a large part of this growth will be largely due to the sheer popularity of casino and poker apps with general consumers.

Source: PR News Wire

There has been a big shift from real tables to online casino games. The online casino business has become most popular and has managed to engage a large section of the population. With the use of IoT devices, it has been able to provide the comfort to play from anywhere and at any time, and to track every aspect of the game for future improvisations.

Artificial Intelligence makes games smarter for today's gamers by making games more immersive, enhancing the overall visual experience with compelling and realistic graphics, characters, and environment. AI makes refined 3D visualization and interactive gaming possible. It makes games more advanced letting the gameplay adjust the difficulty levels according to the performance of the player. This way the gameplay adapts, observes and responds as per the player’s efficiency and skill set in a game. These adjustments by the game itself makes sure that the player doesn’t lose interest in the game and doesn't get bored. AI makes it possible for the game to learn the basic recognition and augmentations so that the non-player characters in the game can observe and learn. There are several other advanced cutting-edge AI applications that are put to use in the gaming world so that it influences the gamer’s experience in a favourable manner.

AI facilitates creation of computerized opponents for board games like chess, ludo, etc. in a way that people could feel that they are competing with real people. Behavioural decision trees based algorithm and pathfinding algorithm are other techniques that help AI in video games development think and make complex decisions. Game developers find these algorithms easy to use and understand and take these as something that has changed the way creative video games look and feel. Considering all of that, AI is still in its early days and has a long journey yet to cover to reach its true potential and revolutionize gaming.

Chatbots or virtual assistants - Android is the most popular and widely used gaming platform that is supported by smartphones, tablets, and other devices available in the market. Integration on chatbots and virtual assistants in Android devices provides the convenience of not having to quit an app or game to do something else. Without any interruptions being caused to you game, you can order food online, or run any other search on google, play or change music just by asking your virtual assistant.

Customer support is another user case of chatbots and even virtual assistants. They are available 24X7, and operate at a high speed and low cost. Gaming chatbots have also started to be used in messaging apps like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, etc. 

Chatbots gather data from conversations and game players which is utilized to build a strong gaming experience for gamers. This information is used to the advantage of improving the quality of the game to fulfill a player’s expectations. 

Looking ahead, being creative and original with your idea and giving the gamers something fresh that they might have not experienced before is what weighs. A good quality game that keeps up with the trending technologies and the growing  requirements of the players has no difficulty attracting large crowds towards it. 

Android app and game development has come a long way with advancement in technologies. Nevertheless, the game development companies are taking full leverage and putting these innovations to good use for an upgraded gaming experience. Technological advancements like 3D scanning and facial recognition for creating customized game avatars, voice controlled gaming for recognizing the user’s voice and controlling gameplay and other functions in the gaming system, gesture control for letting users employ the natural movements of their body to connect with the gaming device. The possibilities of experiments that the game developers can carry out by bringing games and technology together is limitless. 

Just to mention that Logic Simplified has been rated as one of the top gaming software development company on Selected Firms.

One such company that provides Android game development services in India is Logic Simplified which has a team of Android game app developers who are creative, efficient, and provide full-scale design and development services. They are curious and competent crafters who hold the urge to keep learning and strengthening their skills with the latest technologies and trends to provide their clients the best of them.

According to Google,  the install conversion rate drop by 1% for every 6 MB expansion in an APK’s size. This results from users considering the size of the game app before installing it, how long it will take to download, and Internet connectivity issues still existing in many parts of the world. It’s no secret that an Android app without considerable downloads is as good as non-existent, which makes it paramount to hire Android game developers who also offer game optimizing services to reduce the app size and improve performance on various Android devices. 

Android Game Development: How to Reduce Game App Size

Unity game developers can use AssetBundle to use platform-specific non-code Assets such as Models, Textures, Prefabs, Audio clips, and even entire Scenes. Unity can load those non-code assets at runtime.  Unity packages the game in the engine and most of the game's assets are put into a single binary file. Android App Bundle is another great solution offered by Google to reduce the game app size. App Bundle allows Android game developers to build and optimize APKs for each device configuration, which results in a smaller app without the unused code and resources needed for other devices. For Android game apps more than 150 MB in size, Play Asset Delivery (PAD) is the best bet as it allows to replace APK Expansion Files, also known as OBBs, by publishing a single artefact on Play Store containing all the resources the game needs. Using PAD, developers can host and serve all asset packs on Google Play without requiring a third-party content delivery network (CDN) to get game resources to players. PAD asset packs consist of assets such as textures, shaders, and sounds, but no executable code. PAD also allows to customize how and when asset packs are installed based on three delivery modes: install-time, fast-follow, and on-demand.

Also read Why is Storyline in Android Video Game Development so Important?

Gameloft integrated PAD into Asphalt 8, Asphalt Xtreme, and Minion Rush. Both Asphalt 8 and Minion Rush leveraged fast-follow and on-demand delivery by replacing their custom CDN calls with calls to the PAD API. This helped not just reduce CDN costs, but also drastically increased the secondary downloads to start playing the game. As a result, the user-retention rate significantly improved, with 10% more new players than with their previous asset delivery system. A puzzle kids app from a US developer also saw a 21% reduction in crashes & Application Not Responding (ANR) errors after using Play Asset Delivery’s on-demand mode, which significantly helped improve the user experience.

However, Android App Bundle or Play Asset Delivery is not the only way to reduce an Android game app size, which brings me to discuss more ways to further reduce the game app size.

Different Optimizations to Reduce Android Game Size

Reduce the Size of APK’s Assets

Identify APK’s assets (images, audios and videos) that can be further resized or compressed and use high compression ratios, which is quite acceptable for games. You can reduce the image size by diluting the resolution and converting .jpg and .png images to .webp without compromising on the quality of the original images. If you’re using a texture much larger than the number of pixels that ultimately render on the screen, you’re simply not making the optimum use of space and GPU resources. You can use Android GPU Inspector (AGI) to change the texture and see the appearance on a frame without having to rebuild the game. Guetzli and Packjpg are some other tools available for .jpg compression, whereas Zopflipng and more such tools for png conversion. Reduce the size of your assets,  use compression on images, reduce the bitrate of any audio, and convert sound files to .ogg format to reduce the final app size. 

Apart from this, designers should implement vector graphics in order to develop simple resolution-independent images. 9 Slice Scaling is a good technique which Android game developers can use for 2D image resizing and proportionally scaling an image by splitting it in a grid of nine parts. This technique significantly helps in preventing image scaling distortion by protecting the pixels defined in 4 parts of the image and scaling or repeating them in the other 5 parts. Also, ensure that 3D objects have only as many vertices as are necessary to meet the visibility requirements on various screen sizes. Getting rid of unnecessary vertices significantly helps in reducing the app size. Also, change the formats of graphics’ texture. Go for texture formats that use fewer bits per channel, like RGB565, which is a 16-bit texture format, instead of a 32-bit texture format such as ARGB, wherever possible.

Remove Useless Assets, Models and Scripts

Remove any resources you don’t need. There may be scenes, sound files and pictures that are not used, so it’s a good way to reduce the app size by removing them. Also, any code which is not required for any functionality of your game will only increase the load on your app. By removing the junk, you can make your app more energized and active. Always remember that the size of the APK file is directly proportional to the load on your app, memory it occupies and power it consumes. Removing useless stuff helps reduce the size of your app and improve overall performance.

Also read 5 Best Programming Languages for Android Game Development

Reuse Resources

Another way to optimize your Android game app is to reuse your resources. If you have a rotated equivalent of another resource, then you should remove it as it will unnecessarily occupy space otherwise. For example, you may have resources to characterize varieties in an image related to tints, shades and direction. You can use the same resources to characterize varieties in other images too. So, reusing resources reduces the final size of your Android game app and is simpler than removal later on.

Avoid Enumerations

Enumerations are known to quickly grow for complex systems and shared libraries. A single enum can add about 1.0 to 1.4 KB size to the classes.dex file of your Android game app. So, you should avoid them. Consider using ProGuard to convert the enums into integers in order to reduce the app size. You can also use @IntDef annotation and code shrinking for the purpose of converting enums into integers, and the end result will be a reduced app size.

Don’t Make Extensive Use of External libraries

It’s common among developers to use external libraries to improve the user experience. For example,  Android Support Library for older devices and Google Play Services for auto-translation of app content. A library for a server or desktop can consist of a lot of objects and methods that are not not useful for your game app. So, you should edit the library's files to include only the parts that your app needs. You can also go for a mobile friendly library to add specific functionality to your app without making your app heavy.   

Don’t support all Screen Densities

Developers generally want to run the game app on all the Android devices, which is why they go for all screen densities. Android supports all screen densities, including ldpi, mdpi, tvdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, etc, but you don’t need them all. Find a way to know the percentage of users having devices with specific densities. This will help you understand whether or not you need to bundle those densities into your app. If you remove resources for a specific screen density, Android will itself do automated scaling of the available resources which were originally designed for other screen densities. If scaled images are all your app needs, you can include a single variant of an image in drawable-nodpi, which will further reduce the size of your app. 

Shrink native Binaries and Remove Debug Symbols

If you are using native code and the Android NDK for your app, you should optimize the code to reduce the build size. You can remove debug symbols and avoid extracting native libraries to optimize the code and reduce the size of the release. 

Use APK Size Analyzer

You can use the Android Size Analyzer to know all about the size of the APK. You will see the Raw File Size on the top of the screen, which will show you the APK on-disk size. The Download size will show you the estimated data your app will consume to download after taking in account the compression applied by Play Store. The analysis report will show you the things occupying most space in your app. Also, the Comparison feature allows you to see the difference in the sizes of old and new builds.   

Provide Multiple APKs Support

Some APKs have content which is not useful for every user. But, users have no way to download only a useful part of an APK, which results in increased app size. One cool way to deal with this is to upload the game app over Google Play store via Android App Bundle and get the ability to optimize APKs as per-device configuration. By doing this, you can actually divide one app into Multiple APKs and let users download only those APKs which are beneficial for them as per their device configuration.

Remove the Parts of Game Engine You aren’t Using

Including all the parts of your game engine despite not using them all will unnecessarily increase the game app size. For example,  Physics, x86 Architecture and .NET 4.x in Unity. The two .NET API compatibility levels Unity supports are NET 4.x and .NET Standard 2.0. Using .NET Standard 2.0 , you can restrict your app to a smaller subset of the .NET API, which helps in keeping the app’s size down. You should change the build to ARM as you don’t need x86 and also check out the stripping level.

Above I discussed some optimization techniques to reduce the size of an Android game app in order to increase installation rates and enhance user experience. Are you looking for a game app developer to convert your Android game idea into a reality and also provide game optimizing services to make your game app feel home on various Android devices? Logic Simplified can help!

Why Choose Us for Android Game Development and Optimizing Services?

Logic Simplified offers Android game development services to clients of different cultures world over. Hire game designers and developers who uses cutting-edge tools like Unity, Godot, GameMaker Studio 2, Unreal Engine, Maya, Blender, 3ds Max and many more to build Android games that live up the expectations of today’s modern gamers. We don’t just build games, but optimize them as well to ensure reduced file size and improved overall user experience. From conceptualization to designing, development, testing, different optimizations and deployment, we take care of all and allow you to significantly cut development time and cost at the same time. From our experience sprawling over 9 years in the gaming industry, we are in a very good position to tell you what exactly will work for your Android game and what won’t, which can turn out to be a big differentiator between the success and failure of your game. We are backed by team members who are passionate about gaming and committed to help game visionaries create games that rock the charts. If you’re also the one looking forward to building a new Android game mania, you can get in touch with our game development company to hire Android game developers and begin an exciting ride.

Let’s begin with design first

When designing an Android game app, the process involves story, storyboarding, graphics, creative writing, character design, 2D/3D modeling, set design and animation. On the other hand, a normal Android app (like an ecommerce app) involves interface design, graphics design, navigation ergonomics, app layout, app structure, contrasts, fonts, colours, imagery, animation, videos, logos, and information structure. The success of an Android game depends a lot on its design as gaming is a whole new world and players become a part of it as soon as they enter it. A video game is designed from scratch to the level of its full representation and it’s a more intense process than designing a non-gaming app. This makes it important to hire game designers and developers who are passionate about gaming and have the experience of creating awe-inspiring imaginary worlds gamers just don’t want to come out of.

Android game designers also use some tools that Android app designers often don’t need. Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, to name a few. These tools allow designers to create wonderful game art and export them to game engines, such as Unity and Unreal, without any rendering issues later on. That’s basically how an Android game design and an Android app design follow different approaches.

Android App Vs Game Development

Android app developers use Android Studio, Eclipse, Android SDK and APIs to build Android apps. If you want to build additional features for the app, then you can use special libraries, like JavaCV library for computer vision features. Android game app developers, on the other hand, mostly use game engines like Unity, Unreal and Godot. Android Studio can also be used for building Android game apps as it’s a dedicated software program to make Android games, but game engines make it easier and faster to build games as they have many in-built features that developers don’t need to code. Also, an Android app may just need a button, which is often not enough in Android game apps as developers also put animations on the buttons to enhance the look and feel for visually-oriented people. This becomes easier with game engines as they are designed to add such elements in games. Another big advantage of using game engines like Unity is that you can build game apps for multiple platforms without writing the code again and again.

As far as programming languages for android game development are concerned, it depends on the game engine you opt to use. For example, Javascript, C# or Boo is used in Unity, whereas C/C++ is used in Unreal Engine. Android studio is a general purpose coding engine and enables developers to use general libraries. Unity is specifically designed to output game code and compile events and structures, which makes it easier and faster to build a game app than in Android Studio. If you want to build an Android game without too much programming, games engines should be your bet. Unity also offers advertising and monetization solutions. Using Unity, you can integrate relevant ads and in-app purchases into your game to increase earnings. It saves you significant engineering hours while helping you to generate more revenue.

The Takeaway

If you want to build a simple game like Fastest Finger, then there is not much difference in normal Android app development and Android game development as both the code and functionality are almost the same. But if you want to build a high end game like a real car racing game or a Temple Run, then it’s a totally different ball game. Although the code is visually not that different, the way game designers and developers think and implement a game screen are very different from a normal Android app. The Java classes have to do a lot more than just activities, adapters and model classes.

When designing a normal Android app,  the major focus is on how each activity should look and its layout, UI elements in the form of buttons, text fields, etc. and touch controls like touch, swipe, double touch, etc. Android game designers have to focus on individual scenes. Each scene has a background and various objects like player objects, enemy objects and different obstacles that have to be presented in 2D or 3D. Some Android games involve physics and complex algorithms as well. So, depending on the end goal, building an Android game can be more intensive than building an Android app.

Build Your Android Game with Logic Simplified

There are more than 2 billion Android users world over and the OS has 74.6% market share in the global mobile operating system market, which makes Android devices enticing targets for building both game and non-game apps. If you have a wonderful game idea and want to turn into an Android game to earn high ROI, you can choose Android game development services to build a headturner Android game. We have a team of expert game designers and developers who are passionate about gaming and have hands-on experience of building Android games of international standards. Logic Simplified has been in the game development space for over 10 years now and has built many successful games using cutting edge tools such as Unity, Unreal, Godot, Blender, Maya, 3ds Max and many more. Getting your Android game done from experts like us will help you save a lot of time, money and avoid hassles of managing operations. You just focus on your core business activities and leave the rest to us. You can count on us to build a quality Android game with reduced time to market and highly engaging game elements that today’s gamers expect from mobile games. Share your game idea with us at enquiry@logicsimplified.com, and we will get back to you shortly to provide you with gaming solutions we are proud of.

As per the reputed market research firm Newzoo, the global mobile gaming industry was expected to generate $68.5 billion in 2019 and engulf half the gaming market by 2022. There’s no doubt that mobile gaming market is big, and a lot of businesses are venturing in game development to tap its huge monetization potential. However, building a mobile game is a serious business and no matter how creative your game idea is it will still fail if the execution is just not right. That said, I am discussing what the right mobile game development process could be so that you can plan your mobile-gaming quest better and successfully bring a new champion in the gaming market.

Three Stages of Mobile Game Development Process

• Pre-Production
• Production
• Post-production

These are three main phases of mobile game development or any game development for that matter. Each of them covers a set of tasks (which I am going to discuss next) that would help you cover the whats and whys to avoid creating a labyrinth for yourself in the process. So, are we all set? Let’s begin the ride then!

Pre-production

Pre-production is the initial stage that begins with a great game idea and conceptualization. On the basis of your in-depth market research, you decide what game will be produced, who your competitors are, will it be for console, PC or mobile and the budget required. I am assuming mobile as this blog is about the mobile game development process.

Pre-production lays the foundation for your mobile game as the most critical aspects are carefully thought upon at this stage, including game’s selling points, core game mechanics,  fun factor, target audience, gameplay, storyline, game design, objects, sounds, UI, 2D/3D, technology, game engine, etc.  

To choose the mobile platform, you need to figure out where your target audience exists. Most game app developers go for Android and iOS as these are the reigning mobile operating systems, but if your market research points out to Windows and Blackberry too, then you can build your game for them as well. In such a case, going for a cross-platform mobile app could be an ideal choice because native apps will take a lot of time plus they will be much more expensive to build. But again, this is subject to which and how many operating systems your target audience is using.   

Now, as a standard, game concept designers, writers, developers, instructional designers and subject matter experts (SMEs) collaborate to create technical details of the pre-production stage to be implemented throughout the development process. And these technical details are covered under as follows:

• Concept documentation
• Game design document (GDD)
• Project plan
• Software Requirement Specification (SRS) Document
• Proof of Concept (POC)
• Architecture – Design
• Art-style
• Test-plan

However, these technical details are not supposed to be exhaustive as they can be revised based on changing requirements. You need to understand that mobile games are different from console games which have to be completed fully before they are shipped out. Mobile games, on the other hand, are more flexible as they can be developed in Alpha, Beta and Gamma stages. What it means is that you can make a prototype ready (a workable product with basic functionalities and features) and keep improving on feedback and changing requirements through updates and further releases. Basically, you break down the whole development in small chunks so as to build fast, market fast and learn fast to adjust from time to time and bring it up to the expectations of your users.

Did we forget something here? Oh yes! The team, its size and roles to undertake.

Well, choosing a team for your mobile game development depends on two factors:

• The size and complexity of your game
• The type of your game

If you are building a game of large scale, you may need to hire a big team, though, you can start with a small team too and recruit more going forward. The complexity of the game also factors in determining the size of the team. For example, if you’re planning to build an Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality mobile game, the team size will generally be greater than that of multiplayer board game developers or a team taking up casual puzzle game development or time management games development or card game development.

The second factor is the type of game you are going to develop. Based on the game type, you can establish specialized roles your team members need to undertake for the successful completion of the game. For example, if your game is story-rich with a big narrative, you would need to hire a writer(s) also, or a 3D modeller(s), 3D animator(s) and concept artist(s) for a 3D game.

In the pre-production process, you get to decide not just on the specialized roles of your team members and the quantum, but the hiring model as well, which brings us to understand the three ways of hiring employees.

Three Types of Hiring Models

Freelancers

In today’s connected world, a plethora of freelancers is available for hire on platforms such as UpWork and Freelancer. You can interview and choose candidates as per your needs and budget. However, finding a dream worker on such platforms may not be as easy as it may sound, at least initially. 

In-house employees 

You can hire an in-house team, but you may not want after considering the high cost and other disadvantages associated with it. You will have to pay a recruiter to quickly interview and hire specialists, bear the infrastructural costs, look into team-building activities and manage the team which will ultimately take your focus off from the core activities of your gaming business. The lone advantage is that you will get to communicate with your team face-to-face every day, which in return can contribute to your end product enormously.   

Outsourcing/Offshoring

There are various reasons why outsourcing/offshoring has become a top choice for several businesses to hire game development services. First, you get to work with people who are specialists and have hands-on experience of delivering projects as yours. Second is low cost as you pay nothing for the infrastructural setup, interviewing and hiring employees, and motivating and rewarding them with parties and yearly appraisals. Besides, you get to hire resources on a need basis, which means you only pay for as many resources you currently need without dealing with a situation of firing and hiring often. Your offshore game design and development services provider will lay out everything explicitly in the contract including terms and conditions and SLAs, so the cooperation, quality and timely delivery are guaranteed.

Now that we know the essentials of the pre-production stage, it’s time to head to the next big stage, i.e.  Production.

Production

Once the plan of attack is ready, you bring your workforce into action to start building game architecture and modules based on priorities. That said, the role of product owner,  product manager and project manager becomes important here as they crystallize what needs to be developed first to bring your game to viability. So, your team spends time on writing thousands-of-lines-of-source code to breathe life in each piece of in-game content and create art-assets, such as game characters, objects, background/environments, animations, audio and visual-effects (2D/3D).

Some popular tools for creating 2D art include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and SketchBook Pro, whereas for 3D art are 3DsMax, Maya, ZBrush and Marvelous Designer. If we talk about game engines, Unity and Unreal Engine are the most popular ones, but you can go for others as well based on your game requirements. The decision on choosing a game engine comes down to various factors like game complexity, features you need, availability of drag and drop functionality, visual scripting, team size, time frame, genre and budget.

Sprint planning is an important aspect of production as a workable product should ideally be made ready as soon as possible. The best way to achieve that is to work on small sprints and release a module every one or two weeks. Each sprint is reviewed for feedback and worked upon to improve. There will still be bits and pieces here and there to improve, but that’s alright as they can be improved in the next development stage.

Are you thinking about Funding options now?

If you have a tight budget, you can also opt for some funding options from here on by showing your demo product for investor review. Having a workable product ready can attract Angels and Seeds to invest in your game idea and eventually earn high ROI. You can also go for a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and many others where backers can support your game to make it a palpable reality.  

So now, your team integrates all the modules and takes a plunge to the post-production stage.

Post-production

In the post-production stage, your team integrates 3rd party SDKs and optimizes the game. The stage is now set for game testing services and QAs get involved to identify and report bugs for fixes. And why only QAs for bug fixes, product manager and project manager also collaborate with the development team to improve the texture of objects, make explosions look more real, let the trees sway in the wind as they do in real-life scenarios and more. You finally lock the code and spend most of the time on polishing and completing the game to the hilt. These improvements, though minor, can greatly differentiate between what’s immersive and what’s not.

App Monetization

The next step is to work on monetization strategies. In-app purchases, Ads within the app and paid apps are the common examples of how most game developers monetize their apps for getting returns on their efforts and investments. Let’s take them one by one.

• In-app purchases: These are usually the part of freemium models, where users pay nothing to start playing your game, but they eventually do for various reasons, such as to move to advanced levels because they can’t wait for long to cross a difficulty level or need power-ups or more powerful game assets (like weapons, a more sophisticated car, etc). You can relate to it if you have played Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans.
• Advertisements: Ads within an app is also a good idea to make some money, but this may hamper user experience. One way to deal with this is to offer an option where users can pay to remove ads, though, only a few will be likely to do so. You can go for Admob for banner ads, and Unity for video ads that reward users.
• Paid app: You can also ask users to pay some price upfront to download your app. But there’s weird psychology among gamers as they will happily pay $50 for Angry Birds on Xbox, but balk at paying $0.99 for it in an app store. Freemium models are to be majorly blamed for this. Anyway, the key is to understand how your users will prefer to pay and work around your monetization strategies accordingly.

Marketing to help your Gaming App become a new Mania

The next step is to get the app ready for app store optimization (ASO) and submit on respective app stores. You uncork a bottle of Champagne and celebrate what you have waited so long for. Your marketing team takes on from here, but not invariably, as pre-launch marketing can also be done to create a buzz about what’s coming out. Game marketing strategies play a big role in creating a buzz about your game and maximize your reach.

You must dedicate a portion (but sufficient enough) of your game development budget to run marketing campaigns on social media, offer perks to try your game and even run paid ads to reach out to your target audience. Your mobile game resides in app stores, but creating a home on the web can also do wonders to increase the number of installs. What it implies here is a landing page on the web. There is no single environment that users experience, which is why creating a landing page on the web could turn out to be a very effective marketing strategy to reach out to prospective users and coax them to install your gaming app from there. You also get email addresses of your potential users which you can use for email marketing purposes and make them aware of future releases and updates, 

Some of the key components to keep in mind while creating a landing page for your app are as follows:  

• Head-turning headlines
• Relevant keywords
• Eye-catchy images
• Social sharing buttons
• Smartly placed CTAs

It’s a stark fact that in today’s digital world people prefer to spend more time watching videos than reading walls of text. So, you can ask your designing team to create video previews of your game so that the marketing team can share them on popular platforms like YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, and others. Video content is a good alternative to text-based descriptions as users can quickly see the best pieces of your video game and immediately decide whether or not to install your gaming app.

You should also listen to what your users have to say about your game. One way of doing that is to create forums where players can discuss both positives and negatives of your game. This will only help your marketing team understand what’s working well and what needs to be done next to improve user experience and build trust among both old and new players.   

Remember, a release is just the beginning of the long road and it’s very unlikely to create success without marketing activities. I will next write a separate blog on what the right marketing strategy could be to promote and bring a mobile game to fruition.

Support and Maintenance

A mobile game is never complete, so you would still need a small team of developers and testers to take care of support and maintenance. As you continue to learn something or the other from the feedback of your users, you will want to incorporate it in your game via future updates and releases. If we take modern hit games into consideration, two-five weeks is the average time to release updates. Updates are critical as they add more value to your game and greatly help in user retention.

The Game is getting Big and You need Funds to Scale

If shortage of money is holding you back from further supporting, expanding and marketing your game, post-launch is ideally the right stage to reach out to VCs and seek investments via Series A, B and C rounds of funding. Your marketing team is supposed to have built a suffice user base by now to make VCs believe and invest in your product. In case, you don’t want to share profits with others in lieu of investments, crowdfunding is still a good option to go for to scale your game and make it a revenue-generator machine. 

Whew!!! With this, we have covered almost all the major areas of a mobile game development process. Now, if you’re a startup gaming company or even an established one looking forward to getting started on your next breathtaking mobile game idea, finding an expert game app development company might be ringing in your head. Don’t worry! Logic Simplified keeps you covered here!

Breathe Life in Your Mobile Game Idea with Logic Simplified

Logic Simplified, a game development company, based in Dehradun, India, offers game designers for hire, iPhone game developers, Android game developers and windows phone game app developers to gaming businesses of all sizes world over. Experts at LS will help you create a GDD and fill the gaps wherever required, along with offering you a vital piece of advice on tech-stack and scalability. Since gaming is what we think about and do all day long, we can effectively help you with feasible social and viral hooks as well.

We know the importance of responsive apps to feel home on different screen sizes, therefore also offer HTML5 game development services (both 2D and 3D) to fit mobile screens of all sizes. Unity game development is at the core of our game development services, but we have also excelled over the years at Adobe game development, Unreal and many more. In today’s modern times, more and more games are leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to make their game smarter and more immersive, and we are no way left behind in using new revolutionary technologies. In fact, LS has developed AI bots for its own card game app Gamentio and can help you too with AI development for video games. Whether you’re looking for development of multi-player 2D & Mmorpg 3d game or an action game, role-playing game (RPG), shooting game and whatnot, Logic is a go-to studio to meet all your gaming needs, even for console and handheld games development. Is there still something keeping you on the fence? Reach out to us at enquiry@logicsimplified.com to discuss your game idea, and we promise to get back to you shortly to tell you everything that will help you make a decision and begin with your mobile game development process outright.

Disclaimer: The top five funded game companies in this article are solely based on my research on data from reputed sources and may vary with the exact ones. The reason being businesses usually don’t disclose the specific details of such arrangements and gaming is no different. Nonetheless, the names below deserve a mention for making the gaming industry a hot spot for investments.

Here are 7 game companies that received the highest funding in 2019

1. Gen.G ($46mn)

Gen.G, a California-based premier global esports organization established in 2017, raised $46M in an unknown venture series in 2019. The backers included Will Smith, Keisuke Honda’s Dreamers Fund, Dennis Wong, Michael Zeisser, David Rogier and various Silicon Valley Funds. Gen.G was also ranked sixth in the 2019 Forbes list of the world’s most valuable esports companies. With the funding amount, Gen.G which already has a dominating presence in the world’s leading esports markets (Asia and the US), the esports company will make its foothold even stronger in the global market for video games.  Some part of the funding was also diverted towards development of a youth esports academy and open headquarters in Los Angeles in July 2019. 

2. Mino Games ($30mn)

Founded in 2011 in Montréal, QC, Mino Games is a mobile games developer for iOS and Android. Mino Games got a $30mn backing in a corporate round funding in 2019 from Tilting Point, a mobile publishing and development partnership company. In the largest funding commitment so far, Tilting Point’s $30mn were dedicated to cover user acquisition costs for Mino’s Cat Game. The timing of the funding was also great as it was announced just after the Cat Game closed its soft launch period and released globally. The game developer has also launched titles including Mino Monsters and Mino Monsters 2.

Tilting Point CEO Kevin Segalla said in a press release, “We really fell in love with charm, the colourful aesthetic, and the ever-changing gameplay of Cat Game, so we are excited to turbo-charge its growth, and we are certainly looking forward to a long and successful relationship with Mino​ Games''. Some of the best angel investors, institutional investors, and gaming companies from across the world are now funding Mino Games, which has a strong user base of over 15 million people.

3. Bossa Studios

Bossa Studios, which is popular for zany titles like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, raised $30 mn in a Series B round of funding led by Netease. Atomico, London Venture Partners and Makers Fund have also previously funded the London-based game developer in Series A funding, helping it collect $10mn to cement the future success of the studio. The latest funding will boost the company's plans to expand the reach in China.

Bossa has already planned its first-ever Chinese release with Hogwash, a  multiplayer title that pits a farmhand against a group of mischievous pigs. Hogwash is currently the part of Apple’s cloud gaming service Apple Arcade and with its release, Bossa became one of the first game makers to launch a game on the platform. The game studio is now eyeing to tap the huge gaming market of China starting with Hogwash.

4. tinyBuild GAMES ($15 mn)

tinyBuild GAMES, a Washington-based independent video game developer and publisher, received $15 million in Series A funding. The company didn’t disclose the details of the investors, but the money raised was intended to be used for hiring more staff both at junior and senior level, build new franchises and innovate gameplay in new games. tinyBuild Games has so far built Hello Neighbor, Clustertruck, Punch Club, Party Hard, Pandemic Express, Graveyard Keeper and many more.

Prior to the $15 mn funding, tinyBuild also got the $3.75 mn backing of Makers Fund (whose portfolio includes Bossa, Typhoon, Superdata, and more) to support new projects and expand old ones like its stealth horror game Hello Neighbor. 

5. Redhill Games (11.4 mn)

Redhill Games, a free to play PC game studio headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, ran its first round of funding in 2019 and got the $11.4 m backing of Makers Fund, Play Venture and Kowloon Nights in 2019. The game developer was founded in 2018 by veterans of companies like Remedy Entertainment and Wargaming. The funding was directed towards hiring more staff and supporting the first big title of Redhill Games.  Matias Myllyrinne, the current CEO of Redhill Games and the former CEO of Remedy Entertainment and the former head of global development for Wargaming, said that their first big title will be a “new, fresh take on tactical shooters". The game which is expected to be revealed in 2020 will be free to play, with focus on co-op play and use a “games as a service” model.

6. Teatime Games ($9mn)

Teatime Games, an Iceland-based game studio, raised $9 million in Series A round backed by Index Ventures and Atomico (the investors behind Supercell/Bossa/Rovio). Teatime Games’ major focus till now is on reinventing social games for mobile by allowing players to interact with one another, face to face, while playing. The game studio has also built a mobile social gaming platform Teatime Live (for both Android and iOS), which uses Augmented Reality (AR) to launch games that put the social back in mobile gaming.

Teatime debuted the platform in 2019 with Hyperspeed, a fast and furious space racing game which allows players to race against each other and see the reactions of their opponents in real-time. The game features a built-in video chat, Snapchat-stye face filters and allows players to use their earned game faces on other games as well. 

Thor Fridriksson, co-founder and CEO of Teatime Games, said in a statement, “Everyone at Teatime is incredibly excited to launch a new way to play mobile games, and we hope to see other games studios building interactive experiences on the platform. Hyperspeed is one example of a game using Teatime Live that we’ve created, but we expect to work with other game studios on many different genres.”

The successful completion of a $9 million Series A funding round has provided significant support that the game studio needed to launch several other games on Teatime Live in the near future. 

7. Ys Net ($6mn)

Shenmue III, created by Ys Net and published by Deep Silver, is an adventure game that was released in 2019 for Windows and Playstation 4. Shenmue III is now the highest-funded video game on Kickstarter, having raised $6,333,296 which is over three times the set goal of $2,000,000. The video game raised $2 million in just a matter of seven hours and ended up at over $6 million. The belated open-world sequel Shenmue III  takes you on a journey deep into rural China where you take the role of Ryo Hazuki, a Japanese teenager who is hellbent on finding his father’s killer and avenge his brutal murder.

The famous Japanese game designer Yu Suzuki conceived the idea of Shenmue III, which had the backing of Japanese tech giant Sony and Shibuya Productions, but that was majorly intended for Shenmue III‘s production, publishing and marketing. The original Shenmue cost a startling $70m to make and it was not possible to build Shenmue III on a fraction of that budget, said Suzuki.

Kickstarter proved to be a great platform to collect funds and build a sequel that the fans had waited so long for. All the money collected from the campaign was purely used for game development.  Having reached the Stretch Goals of over $5 million on Kickstarter, Suzuki was able to add extra quests, events, and an all-new gameplay feature to bring a sequel true to its name. Kickstarter has become one of the best fund-raising platforms and you can see here the list of top 5 most funded Kickstarter games.

So, above was the list of top-funded game companies in 2019 which shows how much support game companies are getting from investors worldwide to scale up the entertainment industry. When it comes to the contribution of video games in the entertainment industry, movies and music don’t even generate half the revenue video games are earning. People not only love playing video games but watching as well which is why esports are so much on the rise. Funding is very much making it possible for game developers to create amazing games and earn big by entertaining people.

Are you looking out for an expert team of game designers and developers to build your game from the ground up? Logic Simplified, an India-based game studio, offers top-notch game development services to help build your game from scratch and market it fast for early users to create a buzz. Once you have good enough users, you can further expand your game by presenting it to investors and bring the money it will need to become bigger and bigger.

Write to us at enquiry@logicsimplified.com and we promise to get back to you shortly to provide you with a tailor-made solution for your gaming needs.

Top Eight Unity-Powered Video Games

Alto’s Adventure

Alto’s Adventure – an endless-runner mobile game, made with Unity, by Snowman, and distributed by Noodlecake Studio. The game was an instant hit due to its stunning visuals and was purely developed for mobile devices. It later captured the attention of Linux and Windows audiences.  This game is all about snowboarding and requires players to jump, slide, and jump again while collecting llamas. The goal is to keep going as long as possible without hitting a rock, falling off a cliff, or getting caught by the elder. Additionally, in Alto's Adventure, six characters can be unlocked by reaching levels 1-51. Before a run, players have the option to purchase various perks that enhance each character's abilities for that specific run.

Among Us

Available for both Android and iOS, Among Us is a 2018 online multiplayer game developed by American game studio Innersloth and inspired by the party game “Mafia”. Using Unity’s multi-platform publishing capabilities, the game even supports cross-platform play! Among Us became a popular game during the pandemic, and continues to be so, offering a fun and engaging social experience for people to enjoy, both in person and remotely.

Monument Valley 2

Monument Valley 2, made by mobile game studio “Ustwo Games”, is a sequel to the critically acclaimed puzzle game built entirely on Unity for mobile. Just like MV1, it has stunning isometric visuals and great music that makes it highly engaging and worth every minute. Monument Valley 2 follows the same style as its predecessor and includes new gameplay features, making it a fantastic standalone game. Its visual style draws inspiration from Japanese prints and minimalist sculpture. Critics have compared it to M.C. Escher's drawings. Its atmosphere and puzzles offer a quiet, contemplative experience.

Crossy Road

Crossy Road is a fun and free arcade game developed and published by Hipster Whale. The classic Frogger game by Konami, which requires players to take their character across a busy road, has been recreated in a cartoonish pixelated style using the Unity game engine. The objective of the game is quite simple - cross the road! However, it's not as easy as it sounds. The road goes on endlessly, and the longer you play, the more challenging and risky it becomes. 

Reigns

Reigns is a card strategy game created by Nerial and published by Devolver Digital. It's a one-of-a-kind experience where players interact with various cards that represent characters. You respond to their questions with either a "yes" or "no," or choose from other pre-set responses based on the situation. Reigns provides a combination of randomness, complexity, and strategy, which makes it addictive and fun to play. When making decisions in the game, it's important to consider the church, military, wealth, and people. Once a decision is made, the game will reveal the consequences of those decisions.

Hitman Sniper

Hitman Sniper is a great example of an Android game developed using Unity game development services. Among the games listed here, only Hitman Sniper has a price tag of $0.99 with over 10 million downloads, making it a remarkable success. The objective of the game is to shoot enemies, which can be done in various modes for different purposes. The game offers many modes such as missions, tactical, and survivor (where you battle zombies), along with a variety of weapons to help you complete your mission. Additionally, the game includes in-app purchases and advertisements to generate revenue. 

Hearthstone

Hearthstone is a multiplayer digital collectible card game (DCCG) developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It uses the popular Warcraft universe and transforms it into a captivating card battle game that is easy to learn. It sets the standard for collectible card battle games due to its remarkable gameplay, thanks to the Unity game engine.

While regular play involves 30 cards, there are actually over 2500 playable cards in the game. Additionally, there are 9 distinct classes, each with its own set of cards and abilities that can be used based on available mana points during each turn of the game. For a free game, it offers an enormous amount of content, including a variety of characters, cards, music, sounds, animations, and visual effects. 

Axie Infinity

The modern gaming industry is incomplete without NFT video games and NFT game development services. Axie Infinity is a highly popular NFT game available on Android. This is a battle Pay-to-Win and Play-to-Earn game, in which players own fantastical creatures called Axies. Axies are fierce pets that can be battled & collected. Every Axie possesses distinctive strengths and weaknesses determined by its genes. With billions of genetic combinations available, the potential outcomes are infinite! NFT assets, such as battle axes, can be bought and earned in the game, as well as tokens for each victory.

Make your games with Unity

Several other popular games are made using Unity since it is one of the best game development technologies available today. You can create some outstanding and money-minting games with Unity, that run flawlessly on every mobile platform. Are you looking for game artists and game developers to develop your game using Unity? 

Logic Simplified, a Unity game development company, has an expert team of Unity 3D game developers who have been successfully delivering exemplary Unity game development services to varied industry verticals. For any query related to Unity game development, write to us at enquiry@logicsimplified.com. We will help you with your dream project.

Where does hyper-casual come from?

Hyper-casual games are currently trending but they are not completely new and actually a sort of revival of the arcade games from the 70s and 80s. However, it’s indeed the first time they top the game charts since App Store was launched a decade ago. The monetization is mostly done through ads, but come 2019 is likely to see in-app purchases increasing its share in ROI as well.

Let’s unfold the secret that makes hyper-casual games so addictive. For this article, I’ll just focus on the two most well-known games in this category - Flappy Bird and Color Switch. No point in writing a complex article about simple games, is there ;).

Simple Interface and Game Mechanics

Hyper-casual games have a simple interface and gamers simply tap or swipe their phone’s screen to play them. We just tap tap our phone’s screen to play Flappy Bird or Color Switch, don’t we? So, no multiple controls and dealing with complex factors. Besides, game mechanics are so simple that gamers don’t even need to go through a long set of instructions to get onboard.

Single World Gameplay

Most hyper-casual games have a single world that players interact with to build their score. But that doesn’t mean these “worlds” are fixed and you get the same sequence of obstacles when you replay them. Color Switch fans never get the same pattern of color obstacles that they got in the previous attempts.

A Perfect Blend of Ease and Difficulty

Gamers don’t find hyper-casual games so easy that they get bored after playing it 20-30 times and neither that difficult that frustration takes them to exit doors. Yes, difficulty level steps up as you proceed, but then you master the skills easily with time. Millions of players across the world are doing the same as I am writing this post.

Short Gameplay Sessions

Game sessions of most hyper-casual games are short lasting from 30 secs to 2 minutes. Short game sessions are a big reason why gamers feel tempted to play hyper-casual titles even when they have five minutes of spare time. These games are not just instantly playable but infinitely replayable as well. Remember the score of 100 in Flappy Bird, how frequently we played and how many hours we spent to hit that score.

Visuals

Simple geometric graphics and solid colors are mostly used in hyper-casual games. Some basic categories of graphics used in these games are Isometric, Neon and flat designs. So, no burden on your eyes to see more clearly or squint to have a good control over NPCs.

Conclusion

Hyper-casual games are rapidly rising in popularity, and so does the competition. Zynga’s recent acquisition of hyper-casual studio Gram Games for $250 million and a $200 million investment in hyper-casual studio Voodoo by Goldman Sachs show that the race for building hyper-casual titles has already begun. In fact, some game app developers have already made over $100,000 in a matter of few months by building these highly addictive games.

Do you also want to catch the rising waves of hyper-casual games? If yes, the game designers and developers at Logic Simplified hold experience in minimalist designs concepts and UX strategies, intuitive controls and simple or complex gameplay-logic can help you develop your next fun, addictive hyper-casual game(s).