Mobile Game Design

Introduction to Game Design

Learn about the process of conceptualizing a mobile game. Understand the various types of tools involved in designing a game. Sketch a concept to share with your team and learn how prototyping can help you iterate quickly. 6 steps

• Mobile Gaming and Tools of the Trade 3:27
• Brainstorming and Sketching your Concept 4:07
• Brainstorming and Sketching your Concept 5 questions
• Sharing Ideas and Iterating 1:40
• Understanding Game Mechanics 2:03
• Understanding Game Mechanics 5 questions
• Extra Credit Identifying the mechanics while playing a game is a great way to learn about different ways a game can work. Try playing some games that you already own (or grab a few free ones off the iTunes App Store.) See if you can recognize all the different mechanics at play, then think about how you could apply similar ideas to your own game ideas!

Designing the Characters and Scene

Define scope for your game by creating a Game Design Document. Use Adobe Photoshop to create a rough sketch and then bring it in Adobe Illustrator to design high-fidelity versions of your game assets. Learn time saving tips and tricks to improve the quality of your design. 11 steps

• Game Design Document 2:28
• Document Setup for the Scene & HUD 8:35
• GDD and Document Setup 5 questions
• Character Design: Part 1 8:57
• Character Design: Part 2 1:47
• Character Design 5 questions
• Creating a High Fidelity Ground 8:13
• Creating a High Fidelity Background 5:08
• Creating High Fidelity Assets 5 questions
• Creating High Fidelity Characters 6:42
• Creating High Fidelity Characters 5 questions
• Extra Credit Once you have the basics down, try designing your own enemy. Make sure to keep in mind the design principles while you’re capturing the personality of your character.

Animating and Saving Sprites

Learn how to achieve simple yet compelling animation sprites with Adobe Illustrator. Find out how using scripts can make it easy to export assets for use by a developer. 4 steps

• Animating Enemies 3:39
• Animating Space Cat and Projectiles 2:32
• Exporting Assets 4:43
• Animating Space Cat and Projectiles 5 questions
• Extra Credit When you’ve got the basics of simple animation down, try experimenting with other ways to animate your characters. Add more frames to make your animation more complex, or try something different.

Sound Design

In this stage you’ll learn the basics of what goes into making all the bleeps and bloops in your game. We’ll go over using accessible tools to create our game’s sounds and music, and tips to make everything nice and cohesive. 4 steps

• Creating Sound Effects with CFXR 7:44
• Creating Sound Effects with CFXR 5 questions
• Making Music with Garageband Loops 8:30
• Making Music with Garageband Loops 5 questions
• Extra Credit Imagine you’re working on a game with a knight character, and you need a jumping sound and a sword swinging sound. Use CFXR and try creating those SFX from scratch After that, try creating a coin sound for collecting treasure!

The Start Menu and App Icon

Learn the importance of app icons and start screens and create the high fidelity assets for them. Hear some final thoughts about creating video games for mobile. 3 steps

• Start Screen 6:07
• App Icon 4:43
• Start Screen and App Icon 5 questions
• Extra Credit Make a note of your favorite games’ app icons and start screens on your phone. How much did their app icons influence your decision to download them? Think about different screenshots you would display in the app store to get people interested to download your game.