Imagine this: You’re a game developer and you’ve just created a mobile game that you’re sure is the next hit in the market. What you might not have realized is that you might have fallen victim to common mistakes made by game devs in mobile game design.

Creating a successful mobile game involves more than just coding and design; it requires something crucial: the ability to immerse players in a captivating user experience. To achieve this, game developers must steer clear of common design pitfalls that can detract from the overall quality and appeal of their games. In this article, we’ll explore ten prevalent mistakes in mobile game design and provide insights into how to avoid them.

1. Poor User Experience

One of the most critical aspects of mobile game design is ensuring a seamless and enjoyable user experience. Because this is your best first impression to your users! Failing to prioritize intuitive controls, clear navigation, and responsive gameplay can lead to the absolute no-go: which is frustrated players and negative reviews. This is exactly why mobile game devs should conduct thorough testing to identify and rectify any user experience issues prior to launching the game.

2. Messy and Disordered Interfaces

Cluttered and disorganized interfaces can overwhelm players and impede their ability to engage with the game. Designing clean, intuitive interfaces with clear visual hierarchy and navigation can significantly impact the overall user experience. A tip is to make sure the users stay engaged in your game is for your user interface UI to be interactive with engaging game components and a low loading speed.

3. Making the Game Too Complex

Hypercasual mobile games are naturally easy to play and known for their fun game mechanics. While some complexity can add a level of depth to a mobile game, overwhelming players with convoluted mechanics and a steep learning curve can lead to user disengagement. Striking a balance between depth and accessibility is crucial to cater to players.

Remember the phrase: Simple to grasp yet difficult to master!

4. Not Choosing a Relevant Target Audience

Target the right audience! When creating any product, it is essential to know who you’re selling the product to. So it goes unsaid how vital it is to understand the preferences and expectations of the target audience when designing a game that resonates with the right players. This could mean doing a thorough market analysis and drawing the sketch of what, where and who your target group is. What their needs, hobbies and pain points are the very details that will help you understand how to segment your audience and market the game. It can also help with deciding on a format and placements of your ads.

5. Underestimating the Power of Trends

Match-3, puzzles, action, casino… there are endless trends that come up every now and then. It can be an advantage to understand the market trends and have a mobile game that resonates with it. The report from Adjust and Applovin also mentions that racing and simulation games have been placed on the top of the charts. The installs witnessed the growth by 61% and 53% YoY, respectively. They are followed by arcade games followed with 38% and 19% increases in installs and sessions. Trends are not only found within the market itself though, it is worth it to keep a close eye on social trends as well like mainstream entertainment, social networks, toys & fashion, major events, etc.

6. Not Paying Enough Attention to Marketing and Monetization

Developers often focus solely on game mechanics and aesthetics, overlooking the importance of a well-rounded marketing strategy and a sustainable monetization model. Integrating marketing and monetization considerations into the early stages of game design can be the make or break for long-term success. The Gaming App Insights Report from Adjust and AppLovin stated that gaming in-app revenue is increasing! In January 2024, the growth of in-app revenue witnessed an increase of 13% YoY.

7. Too Many Push Notifications

While push notifications can be a valuable tool for player engagement, bombarding users with excessive or irrelevant notifications can be an annoyance and lead to the dreadful: app uninstalls! Game devs should implement a thoughtful and targeted approach to push notifications to avoid alienating their player base.

8. Absence of a User Feedback Channel

User feedback is one of the things that can be made readily available through mobile game apps. Fostering this kind of open communication with players and gathering insights drives iterative improvements to the game. Try to incorporate a user feedback channel, such as in-game surveys or community forums. This will allow developers to understand player sentiments and address their concerns effectively.

9. Neglecting Privacy and User Protection

In an era of heightened awareness around data privacy, it is a huge risk to not prioritize user privacy and protection. This can erode your game reputation and inevitably your players’ trust. So implement a robust privacy measure and transparent data practices! This will not only safeguard player information but also cultivate a sense of trust and credibility.

10. Ignoring Game Reviews

Player feedback, as reflected in game reviews, can offer invaluable insights into the strengths and shortcomings of a game. Ignoring or dismissing game reviews deprives developers of an opportunity to identify areas for improvement and refine the game based on player feedback.

Conclusion

Mobile game design is an extensive process which concerns various aspects. Often, in this process, mistakes can be made and go unnoticed which can hinder what would otherwise be a compelling and successful gaming experience. It’s best practice to avoid common mistakes such as underestimating the power of trends or understanding the target audience, neglecting user experience and failing to integrate thoughtful marketing and monetization strategies. Developers can enhance the appeal and longevity of their mobile games. Additionally, fostering open communication with players, prioritizing user privacy, and leveraging player feedback can further contribute to the success of mobile game design. Ultimately, by steering clear of these pitfalls, developers can take the quality of their games to new levels and establish a strong connection with their player base.

This article was originally published by TapNation.

You need to wear a lot of different hats when you’re making a game – especially if you’re doing it solo. One day, you’re a foley artist. Next, you’re a marketer. Even as a programmer or designer, it’s useful to understand how these elements come together, so you can make sure everything ties into your theme.

To help you along the way, we gathered all the free resources you can use to learn about the different areas of game development. Before you use the resources, we encourage you to make sure the assets are royalty-free.

Game design resources

Game design is all about the choices you make. The rules and mechanics that bring your idea to life. From small decisions, like whether to use coyote time in your platformer, to big decisions, like the main theme of the game.

1. Game Accessibility Guidelines. Every game designer should bookmark these guidelines. They go through the principles you should follow and give examples for each task. There’s even a checklist you can download.
2. Develop.Games. Thor Hall, the creator behind Heartbound and ex-Blizzard developer, has put together the Develop.Games site. It goes through both the development and the business side of creating games. A must-read for any would-be developer.
3. GameMaker’s Toolkit. This YouTube channel is an excellent series that deep dives into the most important elements of game design. You’ll find topics like creating puzzles, developing for a specific genre, and the psychology of the players themselves.

1. GDC Vault. The Game Developers Conference adds all the various talks and presentations from their events to their vault. These range from technical advice on how to develop specific ideas to wider trends and best practices.
2. The Level Design Book. This website covers everything about level design, starting from the theory to the actual tools you’ll need to get started. There’s even a section for specific assets and resources you can use.
3. Scroll back (the theory of cameras in side scrollers). This gigantic article could be a book all to itself. It covers everything you might want to know about how to use a camera in 2D games.
4. Pixel Architect. Dev diaries like these can be a useful way to see how to actually build your game. There are plenty to follow, but Pixel Architect is a particularly good start.
5. Design Doc. This channel answers the tricky, specific questions you might have about game design, focusing on the mechanics themselves. How do you stop people from hoarding items? Why add critical hits? What’s the point of fast travel?

1. The Architect of Games. While this channel seems to be about critiquing games with humour – it actually analyzes the actual game design decisions and explores the themes of the game in depth.
2. Brackeys. A huge channel of tutorials that also delves into the actual game design decisions behind that development. The only downside is that they shut down a few years ago, so some videos can be a little outdated.

Game development resources

At the heart of every game is the code itself. Even if you’re experienced with a programming language, you’re likely to bump into a few surprises when developing your game. Either way, there are tons of resources out there. And if you need an engine, consider the open-source Godot.

1. freeCodeCamp.org. If you want to learn to code, this is the channel to visit. They go deep into the practical and theory side and even have the full Harvard Computer Science University course as a 25-hour video. Yes, a Harvard University course – completely free.
2. Game Programming Patterns. Keeping your code clean and organised is a major challenge, so this free ebook teaches you the best practices.
3. Programming Patterns on Unity. Unity has released a similar guide around coding patterns and explaining how to use them inside Unity.
4. Ludum Dare. A twice-yearly game jam over a weekend. Not only is it inspiring, but it’s worth reading the posts from other developers as they delve into their process.
5. Introduction to Game Development with Unity. This Udemy tutorial is a perfect start for anyone looking to use Unity. You’ll see how to use cameras and objects, and understand the Unity interface.
6. GDQuest. If you want to get into Godot, then look no further than GDQuest. A huge treasure-trove of free tutorials that cover pretty much everything you need – even if you’re not going to use Godot.

1. Game Development Crash Course. Udemy also has a crash course about how to use the Solar2D game engine.
2. GitHub Student Developer Pack. Get your school enrolled, and you’ll be able to get access to real-world tools and practice using them. There’s a page about how to get your school involved.
3. Codeacademy game dev course. This four-hour introductory course will help you get the ball rolling and learn about game design and development.
4. LootLocker free guides. These step-by-step guides walk you through specific mechanics, particularly meta-mechanics like energy systems.

Game art free resources

Not all games need fantastic graphics to be a success. Vampire Survivors used assets that Luca Galante simply bought in a pack. There are also plenty of videos out there about how to draw pixel-art-style games. If you need a free tool, consider open-source tools like Gimp, Blender, or Krita.

1. Itch.io. There are thousands of free assets on itch.io, from character sprites to user-interface elements. Even if you only use them for inspiration, it’s a fantastic collection.
2. Kenney.nl. Not only can you get thousands of free 2D and 3D assets, there are loads of guides on how to edit them or create your own.
3. Blender Guru. If you’re looking to create slick 3D graphics, Blender Guru is the channel to follow. He offers guides and tutorials for beginners and advanced artists alike.

1. Polligon. Created by Blender Guru, you can find Blender textures, models and more in the free section.
2. CRTLpaint. This site has a bunch of free video series that teach you how to get into digital painting for yourself. From concept art to the principles of design. You can also follow their YouTube channel.
3. Proko. If you want to learn the basics of drawing, particularly characters, then this channel will help you get there.
4. 2DGameArtGuru. Learn all the most useful tools, such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. There are absolutely loads of tools here.

Music and sound-free resources

Your music can define the tone and atmosphere of your game. It’s vital to make your game come alive. These resources can help you produce that soundtrack, from composing your melody to putting it all together. If you need an open-source tool, check out Ardour, MuseScore (if you know sheet music), and Audacity.

1. Sonniss: Free archive. This is one of the biggest libraries of sound effects out there. Every year they give out free samples at GDC. This is the link to their 10GB archive of all those free sound effects.
2. Bensound. A huge collection of royalty-free music that you can filter and organise by mood.
3. Music Matters. If you’re completely new to music theory, this channel has tons of videos that will get you up to speed in no time.
4. Spitfire Audio. Not only does this channel talk you through music theory and crafting tracks from multiple instruments, but they also show the process behind actually composing a track from start to finish. They also have a free library of instrument samples called BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover.
5. Ryan Leach. Ryan creates videos about how to compose music for TV, film and games. He covers not only basic music theory, but how to easily turn that into an orchestral masterpiece.

Narrative game design resources

Storytelling and narrative design are quite different from writing a novel or script. You need to consider not only the character and plot, but what actions the player might take. It’s all about choices. If you need a tool to help you plan out your story’s flow, look into the open-source engine Twine.

1. Emily Short. This blog is a huge list of books and blogs that you should read if you want to learn about interactive narratives.
2. Screencraft: Write for video games. This article explores the various types of writing you might need to cover, from cut scenes to side quests.
3. Game Developer: Storytelling in games.This article is the first in a series that dives deep into what narrative design is and how to think about it.

Game marketing and monetization resources

Once you’ve developed your game, it’s time to start getting it out to the masses. Here are a few resources to help you get the word out.

1. Kickstarter: Tips for games. Unsurprisingly, Kickstarter has a section on their site about how to set up your project, entice people in, and get funded. A lot of the advice works well for your general marketing, too.
2. Helpshift’s marketing guide. Focused on mobile gaming, this ten-step guide walks you through what you need to do as well as in-depth case studies.

1. Game Marketing Genie. These guys have a great guide and overview about how to market your game, from understanding your competitors to using Steam.
2. AskGameDev. This channel has a specific playlist all about how to market your video game. There are 17 videos here that will surely help.
3. Steambase: If you want to research other games, Steambase is a really useful resource. It tracks Steam sales, so you can know when to best discount your own game.

How to keep track of gaming industry trends?

Not only is it important to market your game, but to keep an eye on trends in the industry. What’s working? What isn’t? Here are a few resources that can help you out.

1. GWI’s gaming playbook. This free report from GWI goes into the stats and figures that you need to know about the industry.
2. GameAnalytics. Our free tool can help you track and research your own game, but we can also give you insights into the industry.

It’s clear that AI is entering every aspect of gaming. So where is the technology when it comes to voice-overs? Does it work? And is it worth using? We looked at the various tools out there to see the best ways to use it and whether the quality was up to scratch.

AI voice-overs won’t replace voice actors

First of all, we don’t believe the quality of AI voice-acting is anywhere close to a real actor. Even AI tools that are focused on the gaming sector hover in that uncanny valley, where the voice just sounds robotic and stilted. Not awful. But it just doesn’t have that same cadence a real person would give.

True, the technology will advance. But we don’t see it replacing the need for a real person. For one, you need to model the AI after someone. But even then, an AI can’t decide when to pause to show emotion or emphasise a point. It doesn’t have that same awareness of the context of the situation.

A YouTube comment on Sonantic’s video about AI voices. 

As models improve, it’ll get better. But it’ll never be perfect, and it’ll take a lot of work from the developer to make it believable. A well-written scene, filled with character development and poignant moments, will always need a real actor to do it justice.

The results are rather stilted

We experimented with a few different voice-over AI tools to see how well they performed, such as ReadSpeaker, PlayHT, REsemble.AI, Lovo.AI, and Replica Studios.

Even just listening to the highlight reels on their websites, the examples sound robotic and somewhat lifeless. They might be passable for minor moments or tutorial text, but they’re certainly not good enough for emotional scenes or believable characters.

Replica Studios’ digital voice studio.

There are more specialised tools, like Replica Studios, which allow you to change the emotion behind the text and adjust the settings. But even these fall flat when the text gets longer or more nuanced. Small snippets of text, like one-liners, tutorial hints or narration, can be okay. But some words seem to completely mystify the computer and it can’t make the whole paragraph… flow.

So if the quality isn’t up to scratch, what’s the point of using it?

AI can speed up prototypes

There aren’t many studios using AI for voice-over work. At least, not work that’s out in the wild. It seems that most are using it to help speed up their development process, rather than using it for their final release.

Obsidian uses AI to make sure that the story is flowing properly and that the characters are behaving believably. And, as games become more and more customizable, it’s impractical to record those lines until the very end. AI can improve the quality of the prototype and testing build.

This seems to be a trend with most studios.

“We use Replica’s software to test scripts, dialogue, and gameplay sequences before engaging human voice actors to record the final lines,” said Chris O’Neill, the senior audio designer at PlaySide Studios.

Likewise, Ninja Theory said on X (Twitter):

“We use this AI only to help us understand things like timing and placement in early phases of development. We then collaborate with real actors whose performances are at the heart of bringing our stories to life.”

This seems like a good way to think about AI in general. Use it as a placeholder or way to brief your creative team. It can help your director communicate what they want and speed the process along.

AI allows for ‘generated’ content

There are already hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue in modern games. Bethesda’s Starfield has around 250,000 lines. Baldur’s Gate 3, even during early access, had well over 45,000 lines – and that was just the first act. Red Dead Redemption 2 reportedly had over 500,000 across 1,000 voice actors.

Games are just getting bigger and bigger. The main bulk of the dialogue probably won’t replace the need for human actors. But it can help tidy up the quality after it’s been recorded.

With so many lines of dialogue, it’s not always practical to record it all at once. Baldur’s Gate 3 has great writing and quality actors. But sometimes it’s clear the lines were recorded at different times. Using AI to just tidy it up and make it consistent could really help.

But that’s just the written dialogue. The intentional dialogue. What players want is interactivity – to be able to talk to characters and have unique responses.

The next step is inevitably more “generated” or “dynamic” dialogue. Dialogue that’s powered by AI language models to respond to the player in real-time.

Replica Studios is already working on this, with their Smart NPCs plugin for Unreal Engine. And it’s pretty impressive.

AI will soon respond to players – and it can’t all be acted

The idea is simple. Imagine you could walk around a world and talk to any NPC and they’d respond like a real human being. It seems fantastical, but it’s within reach. We wouldn’t be surprised if we see a game with AI NPCs in the next couple of years.

Replica Studios did a demo with Matrix Awakens using their Smart NPCs. Their official demo is a bit lacklustre, so here’s a better example from YouTuber TmarTn2 trying it out.

As you can see, it’s pretty impressive. But janky. The novelty of saying anything to an NPC would likely wear thin after a little while and the responses aren’t world-shattering. Mix in a real writer, coming up with scenarios and stories that the NPCs could draw from – and we’re sure it’ll be mind-blowing.

The problem is that it’s all unique content. It needs an AI voice actor to speak the lines, because it’s literally impossible to record the dialogue.

We predict that studios will need to licence an actor’s voice to allow for this dynamic content. Pay the actor normally for the ‘real’ dialogue and then an extra fee to model their voice for the generated content.

Sure, the generated content will never be as good as the parts the voice actor actually performed. But, you know what? That’s fine. As a player, I’m willing to accept a bit of janky dialogue as an extra. I suspend my disbelief. It feels like the old days where the graphics weren’t particularly good. After a while, your mind fills in the blanks.

AI could help accessibility

Text-heavy games are always a problem for those that can’t read them. Whether the player is completely blind or just struggles seeing the tiny font – having a computer read out the text can be incredibly helpful.

Developers could use AI as a tool for accessibility. For example, you could have it narrate actions for blind people like “Frank enters the room.” Or just have it read out the in-game text and menus.

This is particularly useful for ports of old games. A game like Final Fantasy VII was purely text-based. Imagine Square Enix, when they ported it to PC, could just slap on an AI tool to read out all that text. It’d open it up to so many more players.

It’s possible to embrace AI and be ethical

If a developer wants to only use AI for their voice acting, it’s not really viable right now. Even in the future, it’s going to take a lot of effort to get to the quality you’d expect from an actor. There’s still a price to pay – time. For the most part, we imagine that developers will need a mix of AI and real people.

But how do we balance the two? Society, in general, has a lot to learn about how to work with AI. Regulations need to be set. Standards need to be made. Questions need answering.

With the right licences for voice actors, which pay them fairly for their talent, we can see a bright future for gaming. AI has the potential to become the private Game Master, helping run unique games for every individual player. Even if the voices do all sound the same.

But, then again, isn’t that every Game Master?

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VR games are growing in popularity – with predictions that there will be 23 million VR-related jobs hit the market by 2030. And with better technology and increased interest, more and more developers are shifting towards this new field.

But even with better tools, online tutorials, and a larger community, making a VR game is still no walk in the park. It’s very different to what you may be used to building. To get ahead, we’ve been doing our own research and interviewing the best VR devs to get their top-tier advice. So, here’s what we learned and what you need to know.

Controls being second nature

Depending on your audience, you can usually expect your players to have some experience with games in the past. So they should have a good understanding of controls and button layout. This may not be the case for VR.

For starters, VR controllers are a new concept. Playstation and Xbox controllers have been around for decades and are usually the first thing people think of when you mention gaming. But unlike other platforms, your players can’t see their hands with VR. Saying ‘Press X’ isn’t enough in this situation. They can’t remember where it is and can’t see their hands to figure it out.

Think up creative ways to lend them a hand. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is a handy tool here. You could have a semi-transparent image of their controller pointing out which button to press and showing exactly where it is on their controller. Seeing where the button is on their controller can help them feel for what they should be pushing. That’s what Half-Life: ALYX did, and it worked quite well for them.

Playing for hours upon hours

Unlike other platforms, people can’t wear their headsets for long periods. It’s very easy for players to experience eye strain, headaches, and motion sickness if they play their VR for too long.

So you may want to think about a target session length. Too long, and your players may quit halfway through with a pounding head. If you’ve created hyper-casual games before, then the rules of ‘keep it short, sweet, and satisfying’ can easily transfer to VR.

With that in mind, it depends on the type of game and players you have. Ramen VR’s Zenith MMORPG game saw players spending two hours at a time in their title. So take this section as a guide rather than a strict rule. Use data to listen to your players and find what works for them.

Cutscenes or forced camera perspectives

Cutscenes can be great to help tell your story or highlight important events. And in traditional gaming, it’s fine to shift your player away from first person and into a cut scene or even certain camera perspectives. But the sudden shift of perspective in VR can be very jarring and disorienting, if not done correctly.

The unique element with VR is that your players are always in a first-person view. So rather than watching from the sidelines, your players can be in those cutscenes, experiencing them first-hand.

Clash of Clans actually tackled this quite nicely. They have a 360 movie for VR, placing you directly in the action. It’s a shame this isn’t a full on game and instead more of an experience. But consider treating your cutscenes like this – making your storytelling methods much more interactive, even letting your players participate.

Quick-time events

Quick Time Events, where players are prompted to press specific buttons within a time limit, are great for adding tension to your games. But not so great in VR. For one, the sudden change can break their immersion and slap them back into the reality of they’re just playing a game. And keep in mind that your players can’t see their controls, so they may struggle to react quickly if they’re also processing which button to press.

Focus on more natural and immersive mechanics to add tension. Or, if you want to add a time-based element, run focus groups to see if that’s what your players like. You’ll probably need to test this quite vigorously to find the right balance of fun and challenging without being overwhelming and disruptive.

HUD elements

In most games, you’ll have some key information on-screen (like health bars, mini maps, objective markers), which convey crucial information to your players. But in VR, these elements can hinder their immersion and obstruct their view.

So consider how you’ll relay this information without overloading your players. We recently interviewed Halfbrick Studios, the developers behind the Fruit Ninja series. When designing their HUD, they opted to instead create a pad with all of the info their players needed in the form of a ninja scroll. It made it so much more natural for the player and kept it in the game’s theme.

Don’t underestimate the power of level design here, too. You don’t always need to spell things out for your players. Having clear objects, buildings and landmarks with certain colours and shapes can help intuitively guide your players to where they need to go without relying on a mini-map. This technique has been used many times in open-world games, too.

Nintendo devs actually revealed that they use this technique in their Zelda games. Key landmarks were always in a triangular shape. When players saw those shapes (usually mountains), they had two options: walk around or climb up them. Both actions led the players in the right direction. This same technique can be used in VR, too.

Written information

The screen of your VR is right in front of your eyes. And that can sometimes be uncomfortably close, especially if you need to read things. Having too much text for your players to read can break the immersion, add to their eye strain, and cause headaches.

So you’ll want to get creative when relaying information. Using auditory or visual cues whenever you can keeps the players immersed but also eases up on their eyes.

Precision controls

When playing games on consoles, PC, or even mobile games, your players can get pretty precise with their aiming. When playing multiplayer games with a mouse and keyboard, a flick of the wrist is all your players need to do to target their enemies. With mobile, you just slide your finger across the screen.

VR games can be a little trickier. You will be directly mapping a player’s hand movement to virtual weapons, so they may not have the same level of precision. Consider what limitations you’re working with. And depending on your game, perhaps give the option to increase aim assist or develop mechanics that feel natural and responsive.

Robo Recall, one of the first games to come out on Oculus, tackled this quite nicely. Here’s what we could see:

• They used very clear visuals: You can grab weapons, enemies, and even bullets out of the air easily. There’s a clear white circle around where you can grab them, so you know exactly where to point your controller.
• Time slows when catching objects: In the game, all of the bullets coming at you are slowed down. One, to help you dodge (otherwise, you’d be overwhelmed). But you can also catch bullets and fling them back to the enemy. Lots of fun. But impossible to do in real time.
• They use larger hitboxes for items: You don’t need to be precise when catching or picking up objects. If you’re close enough to a weapon or object, you can easily summon it by pointing in its rough direction. This is very common in VR, considering how restricted players are when moving around.

Lots of assets

In most games, you’ll have lots of background objects to fill the scene. Otherwise, the game can feel bare and barren. The issue with VR, everything needs to be rendered twice (as you have essentially two screens). Not only that, but every object should arguably be interactive. If a player tries to pick something up and can’t, well, that’s just another reminder that they’re just in a game. It can be confusing to know what’s interactive and what’s just background stuff when you have loads of objects. And think about the frame rate and CPU power – the more you have, the more power you’ll need.

So you’ll likely have less clutter and objects in the background. But that’s okay. Just make sure that whatever you have in your levels, your players can engage with them in some way. Even if it is just picking up a mug and throwing it across the room.

We recently interviewed Schell Games, the creative minds behind ‘I Expect You To Die’ and ‘Among Us VR’. They had items in their game that didn’t do anything and were just there. But after testing, they noticed their players trying to interact with it. It led them to decide to make it a unique object that they could pick up and break.

Get started making VR games

We hope this has been a helpful guide to get you started on your VR journey. Some of these techniques and rules may not always apply to you. That’s where data comes in. Sign up for free and download our SDKs to get going.

Read our documentation for each to get started: Unity, Unreal, or Android. Or check out our integration guide for Meta Quest 2.

It’s been the highlight of the news: AAA console games are coming to mobile. After Apple’s announcement in September, premium games are making their way to iPhone 15, with some already released. We’ll now be able to play AAA titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil 4 (the remake), Death Stranding, and more on our pocket devices.

Is this the start of the AAA game era on mobile? Will we expect to see more high-end, hardcore games hitting the smaller screens? And will players actually play them? Here’s what we know.

Can mobile devices handle AAA games?

Yes, they can. But they’ll require a specific technical frame in order to work. Technology has always been getting better, more powerful, and, more importantly, smaller. Only 20 years ago, the CPU in your desktop PC would’ve been 1 GHz. Now, phones are twice that. It’s no different for the latest Apple phone.

“The iPhone 15 Pro is powered by Apple’s first 3-nanometer mobile chip, the A17 Pro. Apple says the A17 Pro marks its most significant GPU redesign ever, with 20% more power than last year’s A16. As a result, the iPhone 15 Pro is reportedly capable of high-end native gaming features like ray tracing, upscaling, and variable refresh rates—as well as HDR support.” – Rhys Elliot, Newzoo.

Even though the tech is advancing, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome when bringing AAA games to mobile.

The tech isn’t quite up to scratch

The device needs to be able to run the games. That means a CPU, GPU, processor, cooling system, RAM, storage, etc. All powerful enough to run high-end AAA games.

When we checked the iPhone’s 15’s tech in PassMark, we found that the CPU is about as good as the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (which came out on Apr 11th, 2017). That’s the year Horizon Zero Dawn, Injustice 2 and Breath of the Wild came out. If we look at the specs alone, the new Apple chip is as good as a top-end (and, you know, still pretty decent) processor from six years ago. That said Jackie Thomas at IGN tested an early version of Resident Evil 4 on the iPhone 15, and the results weren’t too promising.

“I was recently invited to get some hands-on time with AAA games coming to iPhone, namely Death Stranding and Resident Evil 4. However, it’s clear that both of these games are either very early in the porting process, or they’re just not going to be that great of an experience on your phone.” – Jackie Thomas, IGN.

Overheating and battery life

Consoles and PCs have both experienced overheating problems in the past when running intensive games. To keep them cool and running, these devices are designed to be big and able to accommodate fans.

Even if the CPU of the latest phones can handle a top-end game, you won’t be able to hold the device if it gets as hot as a PC does. Players will need to get their hands on cooling devices built for phones to simply play the games on the go.

Gaming can also suck the battery life of devices in no time. YouTuber Ammar Ajjoub did a drain test while playing games, and found the phone drained after four hours of constant gaming. That actually isn’t too bad, considering that the average daily playtime for the adventure genre on PlayStation and Xbox was around 124 minutes in June (sourced from 2021).

The size of the games will be too big

You have a few different storage options for phones, usually: 64GB, 128GB, 512GB, and 1TB. If a game takes up between 40GB to 60GB, that already eats up a big percentage of your phone space. Players will be limited to how many games they can have on their phones at once. And, unlike consoles, where your only competition for space is mainly other games, you have other apps and forms of media on your phone) to compete with.

Players aren’t used to hardcore games on phones

The majority of mobile games tend to be quick, simple, and easy. That’s why the hyper-casual genre is so popular among the developers. You can play them on the go without having to dedicate too much of your attention.

AAA games are different – they’re built for dedicated gaming sessions, where you give yourself a few hours in the evening to play with your full attention. You can’t easily play Death Stranding while waiting in a queue at the bank. The exceptions are long commutes (like on a long train journey or flight). This is where devices like the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck are good alternatives – something with better controls, powerful tech, and a decent-sized screen. These devices give a much better experience over mobile.

For AAA games to work on mobile, players will need to change their idea of what a mobile game actually is.

Apple is trying to change the users’ view of mobile gaming

Apple is making a statement. By porting popular AAA titles, they’re proving that the tech is now up to scratch. But the question still remains: Will people be willing to compromise storage, battery, and finances to play AAA titles on their phones? Especially, if we consider that some of these games will still have that AAA price tag on them.

The key lies with the younger generation

When we look at overall stats, people do play on mobile more than they play on console. But we need to take into account how vast the mobile gaming audience is. If you look at more demanding games, people prefer to play those on console and PC, rather than mobile. It’s clear that the vast number of genres, and rise of casual games, are inflating the stats of mobile gaming.

For AAA games, the story is different. It’s the younger players that play on smaller, touchscreen devices. They’ve grown up with mobiles and are already playing games like Minecraft, Fortnite, and Call of Duty on them.

Even back in 2010, we were seeing that the younger generation are far more willing to play on mobile devices. A 2010 Nielson study found that kids under the age of 13 opted for an iPad or iPod touch over gaming consoles. This lowered for teenagers, but mobile devices were still the top choice. Fast forward to 2022, mobile phones and tablets are still the highest for kids aged kids between 3 and 7.

This starts to shift to console when people hit 8 onwards, with console gaming taking the lead, tablet use going down, but mobile remaining a close second.

So why do players then shift to console? Perhaps it’s because the games aren’t available on touchscreen devices or because they aren’t good enough quality. Either way, players have no choice but to make the switch when they want to play more advanced titles.

But with better mobile hardware, that trend could change. By introducing new AAA games to mobile – and not just adaptations – there’s less reason for a player to make the switch (aside from wanting a larger screen). By bringing these more demanding games to mobile, Apple will prove that these games can run well, that the tech is up to scratch, and that they’re worth the money. This could change the perception around mobile gaming and open up a new market for developers.

It’ll take time to bring AAA games to mobile

With all these challenges, it’ll take a while for AAA games to truly take off on mobile. The shift in the mindset of premium games on mobile, the technology itself progressing, and even the marketing around these games – they all take time.

By making Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade exclusive to mobile, and porting some of the most successful AAA games to mobile, we’re at the beginning of a proof of concept. Players will be tempted to try out the new game on the smaller screens. We’ll have to wait and see if it meets their expectations.

Use data to perfect your game

It’s uncertain how things will progress over the next few years. But one thing is for sure: mobile gaming is expanding and evolving. According to Statista, in 2023, the mobile games market is projected to generate a revenue of $89.25bn worldwide. And it’s clear that more developers, publishers, and companies are trying to break into the mobile gaming market.

Data has always been crucial for a studio’s success. But considering how fast the industry is progressing, with new genres entering uncharted territories, it’s now more important than ever. Get in touch with our team to learn how data can help your studio.

Once your mobile game has had time to mature, it might be worth developing a version for console or PC. If you’re looking to port the other direction, from console to smartphone, check out our blog on adapting games for mobile.

In this article, we’ll look at how porting to consoles or PCs could help extend the lifespan of your game, bring in more revenue, and the challenges you’ll face.

What are the benefits of porting your mobile game?

Not every game is suitable to port over to PC or mobile. The platforms have vastly different requirements and player expectations. However, this shouldn’t deter you from exploring the option.

Porting can open your game to a new market

The mobile gaming market holds around half the overall gaming revenue in the world – consisting of around $92 billion. However, it’s worth remembering that console and PC markets still make up the other half.

While there’s an overlap of players, porting your game gives it more visibility, opens up new revenue streams, and provides new opportunities to reach a wider audience.

It isn’t just porting your game that can help you take advantage of the PC and console markets. Cross-platform play is becoming increasingly common, as we explored in our trends for 2024.

The advantages of launching on a new platform are similar to launching in a new country. Not only do you reach those new players, but you can celebrate the launch, reach out to press, and keep your game present in the zeitgeist.

It also gives more choice to your current players. If they can play on their PC or console, as well as their smartphone, they’re far more likely to continue.

Porting increases your return on investment

The cost of porting an existing game is typically lower than going through the whole game lifecycle – half the initial cost, according to iLogos Game Studios.

This is borne out when we look at the figures. In a post from Kevuru Games, elementary 2D games cost up to $10,000 to develop, causal games cost up to $50,000, and mid-level games cost up to $120,000. As a benchmark, they claim that Angry Birds cost around $140,000 to develop.

Meanwhile, iLogos Game Studios estimates it costs around $5,000 to $20,000 to port simple games. Although, for more complex games that can rise to between $20,000 and $100,000.

This makes it a viable option for publishers with an already successful title. Being able to reach the other half of the gaming market, while costing only half your initial development is a far better return on investment than taking a risk on a completely new title.

Porting can lead to increased session length

People tend to play for longer on PC and console than they do with mobile. The average session length of a mobile gamer is around 30 minutes to an hour. The average for console gamers is an hour to two hours.

This was even more prominent when you look at the extremes – an additional 20% of console gamers said they play between two and four hours, compared to only 10% of mobile gamers.

These increases in session length can directly lead to more in-app purchases. The longer people play, the more likely they’ll pay.

What are the challenges to porting your game?

There are plenty of reasons to port your mobile game to another platform. However, there are a few challenges you’ll need to consider before you start the journey.

Advertising is uncommon on PC and console

This trend is changing. While it’s a relatively new and unexplored market right now, Microsoft and Sony have both announced that they’re looking to bring advertising to their games. The difference is that most advertising on consoles or PCs tends to be more subtle native advertising, where the ads are a part of the scenery and world.

Because advertising is still an emerging trend, free-to-play console and PC games rely on microtransactions and subscriptions for their revenue. With that in mind, you’ll need to carefully analyze your data to identify the best strategy. You can also look at other creative ways to increase your revenue on our blog, such as merchandising and IP deals.

The development takes time

Though there are fewer costs associated with porting a game than developing one from scratch, there are technical challenges to consider. The game engine and programming language you use could be unsuitable for the new platform.

After rewriting sections of your code, you’ll also need to make sure that you’ve optimized your game for the new platform. There are different hardware and resolutions to consider, which may need additional options in your settings.

Controls and interfaces might need revisiting

How players interact with your game on PC and console is very different from mobile. Certain mechanics and inputs can be physically impossible to replicate identically. Likewise, your user interface might not be optimized for different controllers. For example, moving items around an inventory can be very different between console, PC, and mobile due to the different ways people interact with the menu.

Data is key to finding the right balance

You’ll need to experiment with subtle variations between platforms. For example, you might show offers at longer intervals than you would on mobile, make levels more difficult to compensate for more dexterous input devices, or adjust user interface elements to be more intuitive. If you need help in this regard, we have a guide on how to run A/B tests using our platform or check out how we can help with your live ops.

You will also need to amalgamate the data from all your versions to see what trends are specific to a platform and which are generalized to your game design. If you need to collect and study data from multiple platforms, look at our DataSuite.

What exactly should you be focusing on this year? What are the trends that will really impact your development? We’ve dug through the most popular trends and brought together the topics you should keep an eye on in 2024.

1. Learn about AI and Machine Learning

With the release of Google’s Gemini, we’re seeing AI continue to explode. It won’t be long before it’s a common tool that we all use day to day. Getting to grips with how it works is going to be essential, particularly in gaming.

At the same time, we’re seeing hyper-casual games shift to richer and deeper experiences – becoming hybrid-casual. In fact, the number of hyper-casual games dropped by 18%, while hybrid-casual grew by 13%, according to Sensor Tower.

By their nature, hybrid-casual games have a longer development cycle than hyper-casual games. Using AI and machine learning can really speed up this process. You can get the rich, deep experience necessary in a similar amount of time.

AI can help in multiple areas

• Speeding up your development process isn’t just about getting AI to help you code your game. You can use it throughout the cycle:
• Ideation. Get AI to help you come up with ideas and ask it to pull out common trends in mobile gaming.
• Creation. You can generate assets, like 3D models or soundtracks, or use it to create mood boards for your in-house artists.
• Dynamic content. AI can make your NPCs more realistic by automatically responding to the player. This way, you don’t need to write thousands of lines of dialogue to add characters to your game.
• Experimentation. A machine learning algorithm can run through your game thousands of times in a few days. So you can test your gameplay, challenges and ad placements to make sure that they’re perfect.

The more data you have, the more efficient your AI model will become. Data fuels the algorithm. The best way to improve your machine learning and AI models is to feed them more data and let them run.

If you need to collect vast amounts of data from multiple sources, look at our DataSuite package. With that, you can bring all your data together to perfect your monetization models and gameplay.

2. Consider a brand partnership

Newzoo states, “To win the hearts of gaming fans, brands will move toward IP crossovers, social media and streamer partnerships.”

We’ve already seen this happening. Fortnite has partnered with brands like Gucci, Marvel, and Netflix. Roblox has partnered with Spotify and Samsung. Overwatch even partnered with McDonalds.

Clearly, brands are looking to tap into the gaming market. It could be cosmetics in your game, in-game billboards that function as product placement, or even entire DLCs.

These partnerships can be a useful alternative to traditional ad models. You can get a new source of income for your title, attract new players, and keep your game fresh.

In fact, on average, IP or brand collaborations boost a game’s Daily Active Users (DAU) by 11% in the first seven days of a launch.

3. Explore augmented and virtual reality

Back in June, Apple announced its Vision Pro headset. Rumours are flying that it’ll launch in early 2024. However, Apple isn’t the only one entering this space – there are plenty of other brands hot at their heels. It’s a revolution in technology to rival the advent of the smartphone, with analysts predicting that there’ll be 6.9 billion AR and VR users by 2028, growing to about $58 billion. Meanwhile, the Augmented Reality Gaming Market Report believes AR alone will grow around 30% year on year.

Whichever way you look at it, the market is set to explode. Not only with players, but with brands. Companies are looking to partner with studios to create experiences for their customers that offer them more value.

While we’re best known for providing KPIs and insights to mobile game developers, we’re also compatible with games in virtual and augmented reality. Check out how we helped HyperVR or VRMonkey.

4. Pump more resources into your Live Ops

As we said before, hyper-casual games are dropping in downloads by 18% each year, while hybrid-casual games are growing by 13%. There’s a marked shift in the industry to move to deeper games, which offer more value to players and increase playtime and engagement.

Live Ops has become the standard way to monetize your game in this new era of mobile gaming. Over 90% of the world’s top games are supporting their titles using this approach. On top of that, 97% of revenue from the top games come from this strategy.

This means that developers need to keep providing support and updates for their games, long after they’ve launched. It’s about building a community, releasing regular content, and keeping your core players engaged and happy.

If you want to make sure that your Live Ops are pulling their weight, it’s useful to run tests and gather data on what’s working. We can help by letting you run AB tests, giving real-time data, and adjusting gameplay parameters on the fly. Check out our Live Ops page for more details.

5. Consider making a web store

In December 2023, a jury decided that Google had an illegal monopoly with its Play Store. It’s yet another example of how lawmakers and judges are attempting to loosen the hold that platforms have over the stores they run.

Right now, Google and Apple alike take a hefty commission from every purchase made through their stores. And they are quite restrictive on what is and isn’t allowed. Recent legislation, like the Digital Markets Act in the EU, has forced these gatekeepers to allow developers to push people towards their own web stores, cutting out these fees.

This is particularly important, considering how difficult it is to acquire new users. Casual games are hit hard by these fees, considering how little they earn from each download.

By creating your own web store, you skip the commission and can encourage players to stick to your own ecosystem of games. You can even offer VIP bonuses for loyal players who use your own store. This compliments the natural shift we’re seeing towards more hybrid-casual games, giving publishers and developers an opportunity to create deeper experiences and relationships with their players.

6. Explore more non-disruptive advertising routes

As the mobile gaming industry shifts towards hybrid-casual, it’s important to focus on keeping players for longer. It’s all about retention. One of the top reasons that players abandon a game is if there are too many ads that interrupt the gameplay. It ruins the fun. Instead, developers need to focus on other forms of advertising to supplement their revenue streams, such as:

• Rewarded ads. People actually find rewarded ads enhance their experience. According to Google Admob, 50% of players said they’d be less satisfied if the developer removed the rewarded ads.
• Native advertising. By partnering with brands and putting ads as an element in the game, such as on in-game billboards – you not only have a familiar, unintrusive spot for ads, but one that can actually make your game more immersive.
• Audio ads. Audio can play in the background, while people continue playing. They don’t disrupt the gameplay. Done well, they can have up to 39% better retention compared to video ads, according to a YouGov study.

7. Let players collect characters

There’s a reason games like Pokemon are so popular. People quite simply love to collect and hoard things. This is why character collection is one of the most popular meta features among the top games.

Allowing your players to collect characters opens up multiple possibilities. They can be in-app purchases, part of your battle pass or VIP subscription service, or even a rewarded ad. Monetizing this collection is a great way to make sure that you’re adding value for your players and giving them incentives to stay.

8. Think about going into the action genre

In 2023, action was the only genre that grew in both revenue (9%) and downloads (13%). These are games that are more high-octane and exciting than your typical hyper-casual genre, and borrow from the rogue-like genre. Games like Survivor.io that throw hordes of enemies at you while you level up your gear.

If you’re not keen on making an action title, it’s worth considering simulation games instead. These have now overtaken the puzzle genre – pinching their number three slot.

9. Be data-driven

Whether you’re creating your own web store, using AI in your development, or looking at non-disruptive advertising routes, data will be central to your strategy. With GameAnalytics, you can get cost-effective, sophisticated and in-depth data that can help inform your decisions and make sure you’re setting yourself on the right path for 2024.

AI is definitely going to change how we work, play and live. But right now, it’s not exactly great at being original. It tends to churn out a lot of generic advice and content. But, while you can’t (yet) plug in a prompt and have it develop a fully functional mobile game, you can use AI to help you come up with ideas and speed up your process. Here are a few ways you can use AI when developing your prototypes.

How should you use AI?

Regardless of whether you’re playing around with Midjourney, ChatGPT or any other AI, there are a few rules to getting the most out of it.

Make your prompts specific

The more detailed and specific you are in your initial prompt, the more useful the response will be. If you’re generic, you’re going to get generic responses. Asking it to come up with a “unique mobile game concept” isn’t going to get you far. Instead, make sure you give it as much information as possible. Write in your prompt like you’re describing a brief. The more you put in, the more helpful the response will be.

Don’t stop at the first response

Using AI is all about refining your prompt and becoming more and more specific until you get to a response that works. When testing the AI, we often needed to add caveats or get it to perform tasks one by one if we wanted to get the best result.

Use multiple AIs

We’ve found that it’s best to give multiple AIs the same prompt. Ask Bard, Bing and ChatGPT the same question, and you’ll get much more varied responses. So mix and match between AI if you want some variety. It can also smooth out some issues we’ve found with certain prompts. What works with one AI might get completely different results with another.

What can you use AI for?

It’s best to use AI when you’re looking for a very specific output that would take a team ages to do themselves. If you try to use it to come up with original ideas or themes, you’ll find that your prompts are too open-ended. Those are best left to real humans. For example, if you just ask it to come up with themes for your mobile game, it’ll likely rehash ideas that are already popular – basically telling you to create games already in the top charts. Not particularly useful. But specific tasks – that’s where AI shines.

1. Brainstorm your concepts

This is an area where AI can excel. Coming up with thousands of ideas in mere seconds. With the right prompting, you can get it to create a huge list of concepts to add to your own ideas. Even so, most of those will be duds (much like in any brainstorm). But that’s fine. You’re just using them for inspiration.

As for the prompt, it’s best to ask it for ideas using a specific mechanic or with a specific theme. For example, “show me a long list of themes for a hyper-casual game that uses swipe mechanics.”

2. Make snippets of lore for your items

If you have thousands of items, it can take up a lot of time writing a paragraph of text for each one. With AI, you can generate these snippets of lore almost instantly.

We asked Bard to create lore snippets for various magical items in a game.

The responses you get won’t be perfect, but they give you a starting point. Edit them and make changes to fit your specific needs, and you’ve saved yourself a ton of time. Similarly, you could use AI to write the backstory for locations, bosses, levels, or even power-ups.

3. Write short descriptions for multiple items

While lore can add flavour to your game, you’ll often find you need to have a few short sentences as hover-over text for every item in your game. Give the AI a list of items you need to describe, and you can speed up that process.

AI can easily put together short descriptions for multiple items at once.

4. Create characters in just a few prompts

By building on multiple prompts, you can develop a whole host of characters to populate your game. For example, you could start by getting the AI to brainstorm a list of twenty Japanese names suitable for an archer. Once you have your name – we’ve chosen Yumi (meaning “bow”) – you can ask for a more detailed description.

With a name in hand, we know have an entire character bible for Yumi the archer.

By telling Bard to use specific headings, we can generate multiple snippets of information that will be vital in making Yumi a rounded character.

5. Write dialogue to sprinkle into your game

There are numerous situations where you might need a short piece of dialogue from your characters, whether that’s when they level up or when they first enter the dungeon. By telling an AI about the character and listing the various situations, you can get it to produce all these snippets at once.

Giving AI a list of headings is a useful way to get multiple results at once.

If you need more, tell the AI exactly how many snippets of dialogue you want. Or maybe you include multiple characters and see how they interact with each other.

6. Help refine your mechanics

If you know what type of game you’re creating, you can get the AI to help with specific tasks. Maybe you need a puzzle for a dungeon or a list of items a shop might sell. For example, imagine you’re making a crafting game. You can feed in your resources and have the AI come up with a list of recipes.

Kickstart the design process by getting AI to come up with some baseline crafting recipes.

7. Refine the writing you already have

It isn’t just generating text that you can use AI to help you with. As we’ve mentioned, AI can be rather generic if you’re too open-ended. So if you want truly original thinking – develop the lore yourself and then get the AI to refine it.

We tell Google Bard to rewrite our description of Yuttgard.

From our – quite bad – description of Yuttgard, Bard has produced something much more enticing. It’s not perfect, but it’s got way more flare than our original and would be ideal if we’re only trying to put together a prototype.

8. Write marketing materials

Scripts for videos. Headlines for banner ads. App store descriptions. These all need words that you might not have time to create yourself. Just remember to give as much information in your prompt as you can.

Even if we don’t use the exact wording, the AI can give us a good starting point for our App Store description.

Use analytics to track your success

Once you’ve made your prototype, you’ll probably want to run some A/B tests to see what’s working with your players, and whether your idea is as rad as it sounds. In which case, try out our A/B testing tool and get all the data you’ll need.

Taking a game from console or PC to mobile is tricky. The controls are far more limited and the screen can easily get cluttered and unreadable. The hardware can’t handle as much physics, especially when that game is a premium title. But the developers at Psyonix did a fantastic job when recreating their Rocket League game into the mobile sensation, Rocket League SideSwipe.

This wasn’t just a copy-and-paste job. Psyonix made some serious changes to the gameplay, design, and mechanics. All for the better. Aside from the obvious theme of rocket-fueled cars, this feels like an entirely different game. In this article, we analyze what exactly those changes are, and what you can learn from them.

Three rules when taking your game from PC to mobile

When making mobile games, you should aim to hit three principles: make them short, satisfying, and simple. When we compared the differences between the two games, we found every change the developers made contributed to one of those rules.

1. Make your game simpler and consider the screen size

There are some key differences and limitations between PC, console, and mobile. But user interface aside, playing on a smaller device is a heck of a lot different to when you have a large screen and controls.

That might mean removing or limiting certain features to make your game work for your mobile version. Or completely rethinking the gameplay itself.

Here’s what you can do.

Understand what limitations you’re working with

You have less CPU power, less space, and less time from your players on mobile. So you need to understand what limitations you have and adjust your game to cater for them.

Psyonix decided to make the game 2D, instead of 3D, for example. Not only did this make it simpler for the player, but this also avoids the massive amount of physics calculations that a 3D game would have. Fewer dimensions, fewer calculations for the device, faster game.

The developers also limited how many players can have in a match. While you can have up to eight players on console or PC, you can only have up to a maximum of six on mobile. This not only makes it quicker to find matches but makes the games less overwhelming and busy.

Build your game to work on a smaller screen

Mobile phones are getting larger, but you’re still comparatively working with a much smaller screen. For example, if the map for Rocket League SideSwipe was any bigger, the player would need to zoom out. Players would struggle to see their own car, with their thumbs blocking most of the action.

2. Keep the session lengths short and snappy

Players don’t have much time when playing on mobile. They could be anywhere. On a bus on their way to work, in a queue at the bank, or even in the bathroom. You don’t always have their full attention for long. So you need to keep your game short and snappy.

Cut out features that don’t add to the mobile experience

On mobile, clutter will cause your players to drop out. Psyonix got around this by cutting out instant replays on their mobile version. This kept the matches shorter and punchier. Because the maps are smaller, it’s also quicker and easier to score a goal. Having instant replays every 20 seconds would just constantly interrupt the match.

Rocket League SideSwipe also removed the chat function and instead replaced this system with stickers. It’s easier and quicker to communicate with your teammates (or mock your enemies).

Test to find the perfect session length

In the original Rocket League, the matches were five minutes long. But in Sideswipe, they’re only a minute and a half on average. This keeps players engaged and decreases any potential dropouts. When we looked at the data from Benchmarks+ (part of our new pro tier), we found that the typical session length for casual games is about 4 – 5 minutes. So for a game like Sideswipe, this is around 2 – 3 matches per session.

This can vary from game to game. So make sure to test what session length works best for your players by watching your retention and drop rate.

3. Make your players feel epic

Your players will naturally spend less time in casual mobile games, so you want to make sure they have a great experience when they do. That way, they’ll keep coming back.

Replace inactive players with bots

Drop rate on mobile is much higher, as players could leave for any reason – lost signal, got a phone call, or reached their bus stop. If your game is online, consider adding bots to replace inactive players, so as not to interrupt the game for everyone else. This is what Psyonix did, and it works fantastically.

Cater for all types of players

With mobile, you’ll find yourself with a lot more casual players. Having an offline option, difficulty levels, or a top-tier matchmaker to pit them against players in their own skill range can make sure your game stays fun for everyone.

To cater for more ambitious players, introduce leagues, training arenas, and competitions. Just remember not to overcomplicate any of these – you’ll need to strike a balance between customization and options, and simplicity.

Make the game rewarding wherever you can

When playing on a console for a couple of hours, overexaggerated sounds, graphics and notifications can get annoying. But this is crucial for shorter sessions on mobile. You need constant feedback and rewards to keep your players satisfied.

Psyonix did this in their mobile version. In SideSwipe, the graphics are a lot more exaggerated when you hit the ball and score. There’s a lot more excitement and colors. Whereas in the console game, it’s less so.

Use data to perfect your monetization models

There are plenty of monetization models you can adopt for your mobile version, and there’s no ‘one size fits all’ strategy when it comes to your mobile game. It’ll take a lot of testing and tweaking to strike the right balance of fun for your players, and a healthy ROI.

Rocket League SideSwipe is a completely free-to-play game, where players earn items, skins and cosmetics through levelling up. Nothing more. The mobile version helps Psyonix reach new players for their console version, where they make money through their Rocket Pass subscription, in-game purchases, physical merchandise, sponsorships, and DLC.

In a 2022 interview on GamesIndustry.biz, Psyonix co-studio head Phil Piliero, said:

We’ve seen significant growth in territories outside our core playerbase, especially in international markets where mobile is the primary platform for gaming. This has allowed us to reach new audiences in addition to our console and PC players, and gives these players their first experience within the Rocket League franchise.

What Psyonix did may not be the best route for your own title. You’ll need data to find out what’s best for your games. And a lot of it. Our free tool can help you answer all of your major analytics questions. And if you’re looking for something more advanced, then our DataSuite products can help you out. Get started today, or speak with our team on how we can help you.

VR games are growing in popularity – with predictions that 23 million VR-related jobs will hit the market by 2030. And with better technology and increased interest, more and more developers are shifting towards this new field.

But even with better tools, online tutorials, and a larger community, making a VR game is still a challenge in the park. It’s very different from what you may be used to building. To get ahead, we’ve been doing our own research and interviewing the best VR devs to get their top-tier advice. So, here’s what we learned and what you need to know.

Controls being second nature

Depending on your audience, you can expect your players to have some experience with games in the past. They should understand controls and button layout, which may be different for VR.

For starters, VR controllers are a new concept. PlayStation and Xbox controllers have been around for decades and are usually the first thing people think of when you mention gaming. But unlike other platforms, your players can’t see their hands with VR. Saying ‘Press X’ isn’t enough in this situation. They can’t remember where it is or see their hands to figure it out.

Think up creative ways to lend them a hand. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is a handy tool here. You could have a semi-transparent image of their controller pointing out which button to press and showing exactly where it is on their controller. Seeing where the switch is on their controller can help them understand what they should be pushing. That’s what Half-Life: ALYX did, and it worked well for them.

Playing for hours upon hours

Unlike other platforms, people can’t wear their headsets for long periods. It’s very easy for players to experience eye strain, headaches, and motion sickness if they play their VR for too long.

So you may want to think about a target session length. Too long, and your players may quit halfway through with a pounding head. If you’ve created hyper-casual games before, then the rules of ‘keep it short, sweet, and satisfying’ can easily transfer to VR.

With that in mind, it depends on the type of game and players you have. Ramen VR’s Zenith MMORPG game saw players spending two hours at a time in their title. So take this section as a guide rather than a strict rule. Use data to listen to your players and find what works for them.

Cutscenes or forced camera perspectives

Cutscenes can be great to help tell your story or highlight important events. And in traditional gaming, it’s fine to shift your player away from first person and into a cut scene or even certain camera perspectives. But the sudden shift of perspective in VR can be very jarring and disorienting, if not done correctly.

The unique element with VR is that your players are always in a first-person view. So rather than watching from the sidelines, your players can be in those cutscenes, experiencing them first-hand.

Quick-time events

Quick Time Events, where players are prompted to press specific buttons within a time limit, are great for adding tension to your games. But not so great in VR. For one, the sudden change can break their immersion and slap them back into the reality of they’re just playing a game. And keep in mind that your players can’t see their controls, so they may struggle to react quickly if they’re also processing which button to press.

Focus on more natural and immersive mechanics to add tension. Or, if you want to add a time-based element, run focus groups to see if that’s what your players like. You’ll probably need to test this quite vigorously to find the right balance of fun and challenging without being overwhelming and disruptive.

HUD elements

In most games, you’ll have some key information on-screen (like health bars, mini maps, objective markers), which convey crucial information to your players. But in VR, these elements can hinder their immersion and obstruct their view.

So consider how you’ll relay this information without overloading your players. We recently interviewed Halfbrick Studios, the developers behind the Fruit Ninja series. When designing their HUD, they opted to instead create a pad with all of the info their players needed in the form of a ninja scroll. It made it so much more natural for the player and kept it in the game’s theme.

Don’t underestimate the power of level design here, too. You don’t always need to spell things out for your players. Having clear objects, buildings and landmarks with certain colours and shapes can help intuitively guide your players to where they need to go without relying on a mini-map. This technique has been used many times in open-world games, too.

Nintendo devs actually revealed that they use this technique in their Zelda games. Key landmarks were always in a triangular shape. When players saw those shapes (usually mountains), they had two options: walk around or climb up them. Both actions led the players in the right direction. This same technique can be used in VR, too.

Written information

The screen of your VR is right in front of your eyes. And that can sometimes be uncomfortably close, especially if you need to read things. Having too much text for your players to read can break the immersion, add to their eye strain, and cause headaches.

So you’ll want to get creative when relaying information. Using auditory or visual cues whenever you can keeps the players immersed but also eases up on their eyes.

Precision controls

When playing games on consoles, PC, or even mobile games, your players can get pretty precise with their aiming. When playing multiplayer games with a mouse and keyboard, a flick of the wrist is all your players need to do to target their enemies. With mobile, you just slide your finger across the screen.

VR games can be a little trickier. You will be directly mapping a player’s hand movement to virtual weapons, so they may not have the same level of precision. Consider what limitations you’re working with. And depending on your game, perhaps give the option to increase aim assist or develop mechanics that feel natural and responsive.

Robo Recall, one of the first games to come out on Oculus, tackled this quite nicely. Here’s what we could see:

• They used very clear visuals: You can grab weapons, enemies, and even bullets out of the air easily. There’s a clear white circle around where you can grab them, so you know exactly where to point your controller.
• Time slows when catching objects: In the game, all of the bullets coming at you are slowed down. One, to help you dodge (otherwise, you’d be overwhelmed). But you can also catch bullets and fling them back to the enemy. Lots of fun. But impossible to do in real time.
• They use larger hitboxes for items: You don’t need to be precise when catching or picking up objects. If you’re close enough to a weapon or object, you can easily summon it by pointing in its rough direction. This is very common in VR, considering how restricted players are when moving around.

Lots of assets

In most games, you’ll have lots of background objects to fill the scene. Otherwise, the game can feel bare and barren. The issue with VR, everything needs to be rendered twice (as you have essentially two screens). Not only that, but every object should arguably be interactive. If a player tries to pick something up and can’t, well, that’s just another reminder that they’re just in a game. It can be confusing to know what’s interactive and what’s just background stuff when you have loads of objects. And think about the frame rate and CPU power – the more you have, the more power you’ll need.

So you’ll likely have less clutter and objects in the background. But that’s okay. Just make sure that whatever you have in your levels, your players can engage with them in some way. Even if it is just picking up a mug and throwing it across the room.

We recently interviewed Schell Games, the creative minds behind ‘I Expect You To Die’ and ‘Among Us VR’. They had items in their game that didn’t do anything and were just there. But after testing, they noticed their players trying to interact with it. It led them to decide to make it a unique object that they could pick up and break.

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Since it’s release in May 2023, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has trounced the charts. It’s got a 95/100 on Metacritic, and social media is awash with praise. It’s not a surprise. Zelda games have always been among the upper echelons – classics synonymous with gaming. But Tears of the Kingdom is a rarity in the series. It’s a direct sequel with largely similar mechanics to its predecessor.

So it’s worth taking the time to look at exactly what we can learn from Tears of the Kingdom and how its design philosophy helps the game appeal to every type of gamer out there.

Sequels don’t need to change the formula

On the surface, Tears of the Kingdom is a very similar game to Breath of the Wild. It’s the same map. It uses the same shrine and temple format. The weapons still break as you use them. Even the artwork and user interface are pretty much identical.

Despite its similarities, Tears of the Kingdom feels like a different game. It’s got all the same ingredients, but it’s more than an expansion. It’s as though they’ve created a new sub-genre. We wouldn’t be surprised if Zelda-like becomes a term everyone knows shortly.

But with every similarity, Nintendo has improved and expanded on Breath of the Wild. They’ve cleverly expanded the map. They’ve tweaked the art. They’ve made the puzzles more satisfying in the shrines and temples. And they’ve changed the core mechanics to change the experience completely.

Keeping the user interface and general style the same is a wise move. God of War: Ragnarok completely changed its user interface from the previous game. This makes the experience jarring for the player, especially if the changes aren’t necessarily in the right direction. Tears of the Kingdom does change the user interface in minor, subtler ways—improvements, not an overhaul.

It shows what a good sequel should do: evolve without changing what made the original great.

Stay true to your design philosophy

Exploring and curiosity are the keys to Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild. With Breath of the Wild, they found a fantastic way to encourage players along a set path without taking away their agency. This flows through to Tears of the Kingdom. Stables, towers, shrines, and key locations still entice the player towards them, but they’ve found fresh ways to expand on these.

But Tears of the Kingdom adds another tenet: creative exploration. Nintendo realized that one of the most satisfying elements of Breath of the Wild was choosing your own path, particularly in puzzles.

Back then, the shrines and the divine beasts had rigid solutions. Most players likely solved these in the same way. But occasionally, people would find novel ways to work around the system. Players loved thinking about a problem laterally and solving it in a way Nintendo never intended.

Nintendo changed the puzzle philosophy

Developers can typically choose between one of two philosophies when designing a game:

• Creative at heart. Create a sandbox and let players do whatever they like. Minecraft is the perfect example of this. It gives players a bunch of tools and total freedom to use them. People then play around with those tools. This isn’t very suitable for puzzles.
• Logical at heart. Games focusing on logic always have a unique solution to a problem. Return of the Obra Dinn, Bastion, Portal. In all these games, you’re presented with a problem and must try to solve it the way the designers intended. True, Portal left in a few ‘alternative’ solutions, but this was only because they were cool, harder than the actual solution, and only a few players would ever do it.

Puzzle design typically thrives on logical, unique solutions. That’s where the satisfaction lies. It’s in the “ah-ha” moment. You can’t have an “ah-ha” if there’s no logical conclusion. And you can only find a logical conclusion if that’s the only path you could possibly take.

Or can you? Tears of the Kingdom shows us that there’s another way. There’s a way to blend creativity and logic.

Unique solutions limit creativity

When you have a unique solution to a problem – a single path the player must take – you naturally restrict creativity. In most cases, that’s what you want. You don’t want players trying to clip through the walls or carry an object from three levels ago to ruin your painstakingly crafted puzzle. Portal, for example, forces you to destroy cubes before you continue to the next chamber.

Tears of the Kingdom clearly didn’t want to go down that route. They wanted creativity to be integral to their game. They must have noticed that players actually enjoy “breaking the rules.” So they let them. They allow you to carry puzzle-breaking equipment into shrines (usually) and use them to overcome the challenges. And as a matter of fact, they encourage it.

They still have an “intended” path, but it’s… optional. In one shrine, you’re meant to whack a boulder across the room to hit a pad. However, players can actually just lob a weapon at the pad and it’ll still register.

This proves that they want players to try and circumvent their puzzles. They’re encouraging it. They could’ve easily made the sensor only register when the boulder hit it. But they made it like a pressure plate. They did that deliberately. They had to code it specifically to allow for creative solutions. Even though it feels like you’ve cheated the puzzle, you’ve actually done exactly what they wanted: you thought creatively. Instead of “ah-ha” you get “oh-ha!” A satisfying sense of surprise. You feel clever, but in a different way.

Creative solutions make even basic puzzles interesting

A surprising side effect of so much creativity is that it makes even mundane problems much more interesting. In Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, there are plenty of puzzles to overcome in the open world, but it soon becomes repetitive. There just isn’t enough variety.

In Tears of the Kingdom, you regularly need to scale a mountain or get up to a high ledge. It’s the most basic of ‘puzzles’ you can imagine. But the difference is that players have dozens of options to do it. You can ride the winds from a bonfire, bounce on a spring, attach a missile to your shield, build a catapult, or even reverse time on a hunk of fallen debris and cling on for dear life as it rises up into the sky.

In Jedi Survivor, there’s probably a button you need to press to use an elevator.

Creative solutions are more realistic

This all ties into the themes of Tears of the Kingdom. Firstly, it’s a game about exploration. And in real life, there’s never a single right answer. If you were to genuinely come across a bobby-trapped temple, you’d certainly try everything you could to sidestep the strange puzzles they’d made. By breaking the common belief that a puzzle can only have a single solution, Nintendo makes the puzzles so much more satisfying for an explorer. You feel like you outsmarted your opponent.

And encouraging people to think differently seems to be a core theme of Tears of the Kingdom. They’re saying: You need all your wits and experience if you’re going to win the battle. It’s not about how strong you are. It’s how you use your resources.

You can change philosophy between areas

Nintendo doesn’t just allow for pure creativity, though. Not all the time. They’ve cleverly split up the world into different areas. In the open world, players have complete freedom. You can build contraptions to beat a boss or get to a shrine. See a camp you want to clear? It’s totally up to you how you do it. Bomb it, charge in with ice weapons, or parachute in raining arrows down on their heads.

Inside shrines, they have a slightly different philosophy. There’s an intended path, but you can usually find a way to solve the problem your own way. Temples, meanwhile, are the most restricted. While it seems you have complete freedom – you have all your abilities – you usually need to use the new mechanic you just picked up. They’re actually much more logically designed. This makes Tears of the Kingdom appeal across the spectrum, from pure creativity to pure logic.

Use creativity to appeal to all player types

You’ve likely heard of Bartle’s four player types: achievers, explorers, killers, and socialisers. Using creativity as a core tenet, Tears of the Kingdom hits all four:

Creativity helps Achievers get 100%. There’s plenty to achieve in Tears of the Kingdom. So these players are easily satisfied. But allowing for creativity means that they can solve these puzzles however they want. By giving them more options, they make it easier to get that satisfaction if they ever get stuck.

Creativity helps Explorers travel. Despite using the same map, there are still plenty of secrets to uncover. And, with the new build mechanics, it’s easier and more fun than ever to explore the world.

Creativity gives Killers replay value. The sheer number of ways that you can defeat your enemy and create cool weapons gives Killers plenty of reasons to try out different combinations and battle every enemy they meet. That creativity keeps the combat feeling fresh.

Creativity gives Socialisers something to share. You’d think that, without multiplayer, Tears of the Kingdom would struggle to keep the Socialisers on board. But because of the creative building mechanics, Socialisers can build outrageous structures or solve puzzles in unique ways and then share the results with the rest of the world. Even just talking with your friend about how they approached a shrine can tickle that itch.

With more creative freedom, influencers have more room to create creative content. So even the passive gamers, who prefer to watch streams and other play, are engaging with the game. Most of which get the same level of enjoyment from watching as you would from playing. The number of viral videos on social media is outstanding. The sheer amount of surprises and creative choices a player can make means that there’s an endless stream of content that players can create. Content that keeps the game front of mind and draws in even more players.

Designing your game around creativity doesn’t just appeal to all kinds of player, but can help indirectly fuel your marketing. Linear games just don’t have that “share factor.”

You don’t need branching storylines to be “open”

The lesson here is that if you’re building an open-world game, you don’t need to create a thousand different dialogue trees with different outcomes. It can be about the journey they take through the story. Rather than trying to program a thousand NPCs to allow for every single approach the player might take, you can simply just let them approach the challenge itself in whatever way they want. Those creative choices are what makes a game feel open. That’s how you give players freedom.

It takes a lot of testing to perfect

Nintendo needed to do a lot of testing and tracking to see how players explored the world. Back when they first designed Breath of the Wild, they tracked where players were going and how they were interacting with the map. This led them to realise that they needed to change their design to ‘encourage’ players towards a point, rather than simply pointing them there. These were insights they could only get by looking at the data.

So if you want to gather that kind of data yourself, you should try out our free analytics tool.

“Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?”

It’s with these three simple sentences that the original Lifeline begins. And the player has to make their very first choice. How do they respond? Already, your path can diverge (though it’ll quickly circle back). After learning that Taylor has landed in a rocky desert, the player can recommend investigating a crash site or heading for a white peak.

It’s here that Lifeline’s true mechanic begins. As Taylor walks to their destination, the player will have to wait in real-time – sometimes hours – before Taylor sends their next message.

And that’s the key to the Lifeline series. Players don’t just respond and pick a path; they wait in real-time and can reply through their phone or smart-watches notification menu – as though responding to a real person.

How a text-based adventure fits on mobile

As a premium game, with over half a million downloads on Google Play alone, a 4.6-star rating, and seven sequels – 3 Minute Games has clearly done well for themselves. In fact, the series was so beloved that the original developers bought back the rights to the IP and started releasing sequels due to the sheer amount of fan demand.

But 3 Minute Games didn’t start as a separate studio. It was originally part of Big Fish Games – an experimental arm to test new waters and explore new spaces. Lifeline wasn’t the only game they came up with – but it was the one that stuck.

We spoke with Mars Jokela – Lifeline’s game designer – and Dave Justus – the writer behind the scenes – to ask them what advice they had for other developers and what it was about Lifeline that worked.

Focus on a concept

“Notifications were the key,” Mars told us. “Apple had just announced that there would be an interactive lock screen on the iPhone – you could reply right from the lock screen. That was the genesis of the idea.”

The idea actually sat around for a while until Apple announced the Apple Watch.

“That lit a fire under the concept,” Mars added. “It was obvious that this wearable device was going to be perfect. So we thought – let’s keep the scope small and focus on this one specific idea. We actually put out six or seven different games – super simple and small concepts. Hyper-casual, before hyper-casual was even a thing.”

They were essentially creating prototypes, like Poll Party, where you’d get prompted to answer a quick poll. But all of them shared the same initial concept: Use the notification menu somehow.

“That was the philosophy at the time: How do we address this concept we’re trying to make?” Mars said. “Most were simple ideas but ended up needing too much backend work. We put out about seven games in that first period, all based on the game idea. That’s why it’s so important to express that singular concept.”

In fact, Mars explained that you don’t need to be completely original. You just need that one nugget that’s unique to your game. Branching storylines like Lifeline have been a cornerstone of gaming since the ZX Spectrum – but the notifications and real-time schedule transformed it into a unique game.

Execution does matter

The key to making sure that your game or prototype is going to be successful is polish. You don’t need to add hundreds of meta-features straight off the bat – if you’ve got the core gameplay loop sorted. Those extra mechanics can come later.

“Even if it’s a small game, make it feel good and honest to your concept,” Mars said. “Don’t ship out games with half-finished content or mechanics. They can be small and focused, as long as you fully express your idea. With Lifeline, we had just enough at the start – you can make binary choices, and you’re stranded on the moon. That was enough to work with.”

Once Dave – the writer – joined the team, that concept evolved and changed dramatically as he wrote the story. But the core concept remained.

Figure out your guard rails

Constraints can actually lead to more creativity. The actual story behind Lifeline was heavily influenced by the limitations the mechanics imposed.

“We didn’t want the character to be gendered, we wanted it to be three days of real-time, I could only give players two choices, and we could only communicate through dialogue”, Dave explained. “So I was looking for places to add delays. An hour of walking. Eight hours of sleep. Even if it was ten minutes heading down a corridor.”

These creative constraints are what make Lifeline feel so real and compelling.

“Writing these games is very different to writing a comic script because it’s all dialogue,” Dave said. “Even if it’s expositional, like ‘I’m looking at this crater or spaceship’ – all of that needs to be words coming out of a character’s mouth. That can be tricky to make sound realistic.”

It’s not just narrative constraints that can help a developer create a realistic game. There are technical constraints, too.

“I’ve worked a lot developing for new platforms, with different interaction models,” Mars said. “Developing for a watch means you have to think differently about the game design. You have to think about how people are going to have to raise their arm to fiddle with the controls. What’s natural?”

Think of dialogue vines, not trees

Branching paths in the narrative are a huge part of a story-driven game. But they can be a nightmare to write.

“If you let it branch out too much, you’ll never capture the story,” Dave said. “It’s about taking little deviations from the main line and then weaving them back together. It’s actually easy to keep branching, but if you do that, you’ll end up with 64 passages with no endings.”

Instead, Dave suggests finding ways to get to the key story moments you want to tell. You don’t want to tell stories that are going to be hidden away on some tangential path that nobody will ever see.

“It’s more like a vine, than a tree,” Dave said. “Don’t hide your best scenes.”

Make sure choices matter

Writing your dialogue like a vine – rather than a tree – might sound like individual choices aren’t important. But that shouldn’t be the case.

“What makes a game a game is player agency,” Mars explained. “It’s a delicate balance. The player needs to feel like the choices they’re making matter. Even if that choice is that Taylor dies early. It’s fine to cut a path off and end it.”

Another technique is to bring back an element later in the story. The branch might come back together – run along the main vine for a significant time – but having that item or talking to that character might push the player down a completely different path later down the story.

Listen to feedback

As a story-based game, Lifeline doesn’t need to track how people progress through levels. But they do need to keep their finger on the pulse.

“We look at player sentiment a lot, read reviews and stay active in the community,” Mars explained. “What matters most is engaging the players – the strength of the writing.”

“The amount of love and devotion has blown us away,” Dave added. “We never thought this level of fan love was possible – we even get fan art and cosplay.”

Me and @Ghost_Logic went as the weirdly cool space and magic nerds at #dragoncon this year! @lifelinegame pic.twitter.com/QIYSp0NLqf

— Holly (@PekaSairroc) September 7, 2017

One key challenge from the community came when the team experimented with a free to play model.

“Lifeline’s player base didn’t love it, so the Lifeline Universe app never left beta,” Mars explained.

One reason for this was that micro-transactions break the immersion. Players need to suspend their disbelief if they’re going to relate to your characters and story. So interrupting them with ads or micro-transactions doesn’t work.

“The second your friend wants to charge you to tell you a slightly better joke, that’s when you stop talking to them,” Dave said.

For story games, it seems the best model is a one-off payment or subscription.

“We recently released Lifeline+ on Apple Arcade,” Mars said. “And it’s been great seeing a resurgence in activity. That subscription model, getting regular stories without interrupting the gameplay, that’s perfect for us.”

Keep up to date with the latest news

We definitely recommend keeping an eye on this space. Mars hinted that they’ve got a new project in the works, but that they’re not quite ready to talk about it. It should be coming out this year, so make sure you follow them on Twitter to get any updates there. And if you enjoyed hearing from 3 Minute Games and learning their advice, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.