How to Make a Mobile Game App? [2024 Guide]

Mobile games have captured nearly half of the gaming industry revenue with the increase in usage of mobile games. The gaming industry has been transforming with frequent updates to make up with the trend and bring new gaming experiences to gamers. Every year the gaming industry tries out new things to upscale its market where more than a decade ago the launch of smartphones bought a new market for the gaming industry. This made the game developers develop advanced mobile games and now this market has reached a billion-dollar market value.

How to Create a Game App?

Most of us have played at least one mobile game but have you wondered how to create a mobile game? The game developers follow a sequential pattern to develop a mobile game but this changes concerning the usage of development tools. The article lets you know the detailed process followed by game developers to create a game app.

The Process to Create a Mobile Game 

1. Think of a Game Idea

2. Develop a Game Story

3. Prepare a Game Plan

4. Determine the Programming Language

5. Select Game Engine

6. Design Game Structure

7. Setup Animations

8. Integrate Game Models

9. Mobile Game Testing

10. Beta Launch

11. Mobile Game Deployment

Think of a Game Idea

The first thing in bringing your game to the digital world is to plan the right game idea that attracts the users to play. The best game can have genuine gamers even after years of launch this is because of the game idea and the storyline. The game idea and the storyline is the first thing that helps you scale up your game to further heights and reach your goals.

Develop an Engaging Game Story

After planning out your storyline, go through every point of the game story and make it more engaging. The game which is more engaging and adventurous to the users are getting more traction with young gamers. With the growing gaming population in the category of action and adventure, it will be a great way to deliver a similar game with an engaging story to cover up a huge user base for your game.

Prepare Game Plan

After finalizing your engaging game story you may go with a game plan on how to plan your graphics, how to design your game character, your game character powers, and your marketing strategy as well. Planning your marketing strategy now will be a great way to target more related audiences to your game from the start of your launch and will help you in testing the launch of your beta version and receiving feedback from the users of the beta version.

Determine Programming Language

After setting up all the needs for the game story and game plan you can assign a development team to start your mobile game development process. Figuring out the right programming language for your game plan is the first step in your development process. Every programming language has its advantage which is reflected in the game after the development process.

Programming languages play a huge role in the performance of the games so figuring out the right one will improve the performance concerning its additional functionalities and features of the game.

Select Game Engine

The game engine plays a huge role in the game development process at present unreal and Unity 3d play a huge role in mobile games as leading game engines. Each game engine comes up with different functionalities and features that help in Video game development and as well as in improvising gaming platforms. The gaming engine has its models and this helps in developing the games within a specified time.

Design Game Structure

The game structure is a way to bring your exact imagination to the digital world. The design of game characters and other in-game assets and every structure in the game story must be designed in a unique way to attract gamers and all the assets must be attractive. Every game element should be attractive and useful for the storyline to give an immersive gaming experience to the gamers. 

Setup Animations

Once the design and all the structures of the game are set you may go with the process of setting up animation for characters and all other required game elements. All the required animations and mechanisms for the characters have to provide the best visuals for the gamers. Setting up unnecessary animations can irritate gamers at any point. Mobile games must possess only the required animation for a free flow of gameplay.

Integrate Game Models

After setting up game characters, background environment, frontend & backend work the final process in the development is the integration of all the gaming models and providing a fully developed game. One of the great steps in the development process is setting up the whole game engine and other stuff into a single game model. The integration of the gaming models takes time and the involvement of various teams from designing to development and ending up with the testing team.

Mobile Game Testing

Once the game is completely developed, the game goes through a series of tests where our software testing team will figure out the bugs and vulnerabilities and will be working with the developers to fix and remove the vulnerabilities to give a hassle-free gaming experience to the gamers. Once everything is set the game is ready for its beta-launch.

Beta Launch

The beta version is a very useful step to figure out the bugs and vulnerabilities as only a few audiences will be able to access the game and they help the developers with the feedback if there is any presence of glitches or bugs while playing through the games. The beta launch is one of the most preferred steps for big projects in recent days.

Mobile Game Deployment

After the launch of the beta version and fixing the bugs and vulnerabilities, you may go with the game launch in the global market for gamers around the globe by deploying it on the client's server once every process is done.

Tools Used to Build Mobile Games

Mobile game developers use a wide range of tools depending on the project requirement to build a mobile game. Here are a few tools used by game developers in the mobile game development process.

- Unity 3D

- Unreal Engine

- Mixamo

- Flutter

- Swift

- Kotlin

- Blender

- Cry Engine

The above-mentioned are only a few and there are still more left out in the digital space used for Game development services but these are the ones most preferred by game developers.

How much does it cost to develop a mobile game?

The cost to develop a mobile game varies in a wide range depending on the usage of tools, the hierarchy of the developers, the complexity of the game, and the game story. So, figuring out the cost of mobile game development without knowing the complexity of the game and the game story is impossible. But in the worst case, a normal game with minimal complexity and a normal game plan would start between $15,000 to $50,000 where the development of a complex game may even go beyond $300,000 and this is the case in India where the development cost in other countries will go beyond this limit.

End Note

The Mobile game development process changes further with the usage of the tools and the device we focus on. The game for Android and the cost for an iOS game will vary whereas a cross-platform will cost you further more. So, the complete game process can be figured out with all the pre-planned work of the storyline and the tools to be used whereas the above one comes as a general workflow for the game development process.

If are you looking to update your mobile game or to develop your mobile game then you are at the right place you may connect with the experts of Maticz to bring your idea to digital reality on everyone’s mobile. Just a step forward to bring your game to the world of reality, discuss your idea and our experts give you the best gaming platform for your game idea.

Related Article: Unity 3D Game Development, Unreal Engine Game Development