Game Development: Getting Started

Game Development

I’ve been in on the starting stages of 5 separate game titles, 3 for Facebook and 2 for mobile platforms. Three of those games never saw the public light of day, but the other two have. I’ve also been involved with content creation for a few other games. Let me tell you: It’s exciting!

You feel like you have an entire world in front of you – one in which ANYTHING can happen! It’s like being a kid again, when your imagination was just as real as the world we live in, and dreams were sharp and vibrant and oh-so-possible. It’s exhilarating and frightening. There are so many ways to go, so many chances to make the wrong choice… or the right one!

It’s another jump.

So, how did we start?

Do Your Homework

I’m so proud of the work and thought that went into ensuring we supported Preschool curriculum in Gummies Playground. We wanted to ensure that our educational experience was fun AND did something good – something we could be proud of. I think we succeeded.

Once we had decided we were going to focus on a kids’ game, we started researching. Google Docs has been a huge help for us. We could simultaneously edit and comment and respond with everyone necessary without having to get face-to-face. I started with cognitive development milestones.

Some Sites I Used (along with guidance from our Early Childhood Education expert).

• healthychildren.org
• education.com
• Web MD
• Publicly available information on the Head Start Curriculum

Erik started searching and testing kid games on both iTunes and the Google Play store to see what was available – where were they weak? Where were they strong? How could we do better? We broke it down, game by game, and figured out what we didn’t want to do, and exactly what we did want to do.

Then we sat down with our Educational Consultant, Crystal, and went over the developmental milestones, broke them down, compared them to the preschool curriculum she uses in her class (both print and online), determined what we could handle on a mobile platform, discussed fun and gameplay and storyline and then determined our minigames from that list of milestones.

Be well. Dream your Dream and Jump!

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