The Phases of Creating a New Game

Creating a game is a journey with distinct phases, each crucial to the development process. Based on my experience as both a game developer and an investor, here’s an overview of the key stages involved in bringing a new game to life:

1. Idea and Vision

The journey starts with an idea, but it’s essential to involve key team members from the beginning. The sooner you have everyone on board, the more ownership and buy-in you’ll see. The initial idea should evolve into a shared vision, aligning both creative and business goals. This is the stage where you define what you’re aiming for and identify the must-have features (refer to my previous blog post on key features).

At this point, you should also conduct market research and start thinking about the scope of the project. Are you aiming for something quick and agile, or a AAA title that will take years to develop? These discussions are crucial for setting expectations.

One practical tip is to create a fake App Store page for your game. This exercise forces the team to think about the key selling points and how the game will be marketed. It’s a simple but effective way to clarify what your game is really about and how it will appeal to players.

2. Prototyping

Prototyping is where your vision is put to the test. It’s essential to spend significant time in this phase to ensure that the core mechanics of the game are fun and engaging. The goal here is to find the "fun factor." Whether it’s a new game mechanic or a meta-system, this is the stage where you test those ideas.

Focus on what’s critical and avoid getting bogged down in details like graphics. If your game is fun with gray boxes, the final visuals will only enhance the experience. This is also the stage where you must be brutally honest with yourself—if the idea isn’t working, it’s better to pivot or scrap it now before more time and resources are invested.

3. Pre-production

In pre-production, you figure out the "what" and "how" of your project. By now, you should be 99% confident in the vision and the prototype. This is where you define your art style, test your technology, and decide on the tools you’ll use.

It’s also crucial to map out your key features and milestones. If you’re using agile methodologies, start setting up your epics, user stories, and product goals. This is also the time to update your stakeholders on the plan and the resources you’ll need.

Start your Game Design Document (GDD) and technical documentation. These should be living documents that evolve as the project progresses. Ensure your communication plans are in place—decide how much of the development process you’ll share publicly and when. You might even consider doing a VLOG about the journey. Expanding on this, it’s important to integrate your marketing and traction planning early. How will you build a community around your game? Whether it’s vlogging the development, creating Discord channels, writing blog posts, engaging in good old PR, or promoting the game at events, these efforts are crucial. In larger organizations, the marketing department typically leads these efforts, but they’ll likely appreciate any proactive ideas or plans from the development team as well.

4. Production

Production is where the plan you created in pre-production is executed. While coding and technical aspects should be relatively straightforward at this stage, the creative work will involve a lot of iteration. It’s important to bring in testers early and often, even before the official testing phase, to gather feedback.

During production, start planning how you’ll support the live game. Figure out the logistics of player support, technical support, and live services like in-game events and updates. This phase is where you turn your vision into reality, but it’s also about setting up the infrastructure to keep the game alive and thriving once it’s in the hands of players.

5. Testing

In the testing phase, you’ll open the game to a broader audience. Start with small focus groups and gradually expand to larger groups, including closed tests in specific regions. Stress testing and early access can help you gauge how the game performs under load.

Communication with players is key during this phase. Don’t dismiss feedback as players “not getting it.” Instead, dig deeper into why certain feedback is being given and whether it’s worth addressing. Make sure your live plans and pipeline are in place before going fully live.

It’s also incredibly important to talk about player feedback with the entire team. Open and transparent communication about the state of the game is crucial, especially during testing and after launch. While there might be a temptation to protect the team from harsh feedback, I’ve found that overprotecting the team can be more harmful. Transparency is key, and it’s important to foster good team morale so that even the most negative feedback can be seen as a valuable learning opportunity.

6. Live

Going live is not the end—it’s just the beginning. Be prepared for both success and the need to scale down if things don’t go as planned. Continuous monitoring of player feedback and engagement is crucial. The entire team should be playing the game regularly to understand it from a player’s perspective.

Live operations require robust systems and processes to handle the ongoing needs of the game. Always be ready to scale up operations quickly in case of unexpected success, and have plans to scale down if needed. It’s not just about making the game; it’s also about ensuring that all the other aspects around it—marketing, communications, player support, and technical support—are working seamlessly.

You also need to plan how you’re going to handle bug fixes in a live environment. How will you provide content updates? Will you need to do full client updates, or can you update content from the server side? Have a clear plan for how you’ll respond if something goes wrong at launch—because something almost always does. You only get one chance to make a first impression with your initial players, and they are likely to be your most valuable cohort.

Successfully developing a game is about much more than just writing code and creating graphics. It’s a complex process that requires careful planning, iteration, and execution across multiple phases. By paying attention to each of these stages and planning for both the expected and the unexpected, you can increase your chances of creating a game that not only launches successfully but also thrives in the long term.