Who's new? My first experience in the development of the game - from idea to publication

Hello! My name is Alex, I'm from St. Petersburg. In this article I will tell about my first experience of developing a mobile game for Android on Unity3d.

If you are close to the idea of ​​creating your own game or application, but you are in thought or are not confident in your abilities - read my article. I hope she helps you make a decision!
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Also interesting is the opinion of experienced and successful indie developers!

So, here is my story.

Egg or chicken?

What appeared earlier - the idea for a game or the desire to penetrate into a new area of ​​mobile application development for me is hard to say. Rather, everything is interconnected and one follows from the other.

I began to take concrete actions somewhere at the end of November 2017. First, I studied a bit the mobile gaming market for something similar to my intended game. It turned out that there was a lot, even a lot, but I didn’t find one. In the end, I decided to make the game!

A little about the game itself

I will not be cunning, the idea of ​​an application for android came to me thanks to one board game. Maybe one of the readers even played it. The principle in the game remains the same, but the mechanics and then the complexity of the levels have changed significantly.



The goal of the game is to place all the pieces on the playing field. Differences from similar puzzles presented on “Google Play”: the figures and the playing field at all levels are the same, but you need to place them on the playing field in each level in a new way, in accordance with the color marks. There are several options for passing a level, but most often one.

Search tool

I practically had no programming experience (and even now it is not that much). At first I decided that in order to develop applications for android, I need to learn the Java language. I downloaded a lot of books and video courses ... I started reading, browsing, doing tasks and exercises ... and then I found out that there is such a wonderful "thing" like "Unity3d", and that to work with it, it is better to learn the C # language ... I had to shovel the Internet again in search necessary material to study.

I must say that there are very few sensible courses on this subject in Russian. I studied the basics of C # and Unity on video courses on the “ITVDN” resource and on “YouTube”. I learned a lot, but it was general knowledge, but I needed specifics. I had to remember the school curriculum of the English language and turn to foreign sources. I needed the basics for my particular application from video courses from the author: “Wilmer Lin”.

As a result, having spent about three months on training, in the middle of February 2018 I started writing the first code for my future game.

The beginner's thorny path

Development of the game was with varying success, sometimes threatening to go into a dead end. The first "insoluble", as it seemed to me then, was the realization of the movement of the figures. It seems everything is simple, you poke a finger into the figure and drag it to the right place. But in practice, I spent a lot of time to figure out how this can be implemented in code.

I also had to tinker with the task of assigning a figure to the playing field so that it could be put on the field, and then taken from there, if necessary.

Then the “headache” began with the reversal of the figures and their mirror image, checking the playing field for “complete and correct filling” and other nuances.

Design

The design of the game was also not easy. I have some skills in this business, so I had to do it, redo it and do it again — redo it ...

Of course, you could order the design from professionals, but ... money, money, money ...
I hope that in developing the following applications I will already have free funds to pay for the designer.



Especially worth noting icon. He did it long and hard, and, as a result, it turned out like this:



See how she manifests herself. Which of the readers "has an eye on this case," tell me, please, if something is wrong.

Sounds

Finding sounds suitable for playing is a long process. And it is very long if you are looking for free content. As you understand, I did just that. As a result, I found the sounds I needed on the Freesound website, and I downloaded background music from the Asset Store on Unity. Under the terms of the license, I had to place information about the authors in the game. Made for this a separate pop-up window in the settings menu. I think this is an acceptable fee for free content ...

Rework

Separately, it is worth mentioning the topic of planning. It is necessary, and even very, but for some reason, everything is not thought out at once. I tried to act "rationally": first I made several levels, checked, verified, and I liked everything about them ... until I completed all the remaining levels. And then it dawned on me ... As a result, I had to make changes manually at each of the 100 levels, and then again, and again, and more ... And when everything was ready, and the game was published, a new idea appeared on how to supplement it. ...

In general, planning is a necessary thing, but it also requires a lot of experience.

Monetization

The game immediately decided to make free, with built-in advertising and in-game purchases, as well as rewards for viewing ads. Shopping is an opportunity to disable advertising, as well as the purchase of bonuses that extend the time allotted for the passage of the level. Bonuses are also available for viewing ads.

Advertising embedded through the SDK from the "Appodeal". I hope that the positive feedback on this company will be true, and we will work with them for a long time and fruitfully. Yes, there would be someone else to watch this ad ...

Testing and publishing

The working version of the game was published on Google Play on the morning of May 9th. Such is a small victory. If you do not take the time to learn the basics, then it took about 3 months to develop the game itself. I don’t know if it’s a lot or a little for a game of this class like mine, but for myself I understand that now I can do something similar in a shorter time.

I decided to immediately publish the working version, as I understood that no one could see the game except friends. Their advice and comments helped to change the game for the better. In particular, he changed the button of mirror reflection of the figure.

It was


It became


It seemed to me that the previous version of the button was clear ... But from the side it is more visible, and it’s good that it was redone.

Also added to the game translation into Russian. Initially, everything was written in English, since he considered that there were few words in the game, and there would be enough English. Now it’s nicer that the game shows “ Level passed! "And not" Level completed! ". Also, on the advice of friends, I added a little training to the game. I hope that it will be enough to get used to the game for those who want to play it.

Promotion

I think that creating a game is only half the battle. The second half is a promotion that I haven’t engaged in at the moment. Honestly, there are now certain concerns about whether it will work out a game and the like ... But what to do, you need to overcome this and move towards success.

In addition to “Google Play”, I posted the game on Yandex.Store, but something tells me that it is not very active.

Still trying to get into "GetJar", while hanging on moderation.

First of all, I plan to use custom YouTube reviews for promotion. I read in many articles that this is a very effective method. Now I am compiling a list and writing to the authors of the channels to get acquainted with the terms of cooperation.

If anyone has experience, please share effective ways to promote. I think that I will write about the results of the promotion in the next article in two months.

Results

No matter what happens next, I'm glad that has already happened. Including the fact that this article was published and you read it. I hope that someone it will be useful and inspire their exploits.

Developing a game is not an easy thing, but very interesting. So, if there is a desire - dare! Thank you all for your attention! I will be glad to your comments!