How to Start Developing a Successful Game App for iOS

Last updated on October 9th, 2023 at 01:29 pm

The market value of iOS mobile game apps is continually increasing with the launch of the latest game apps. The trending iOS game apps are creating great hype and excitement among players. Players love to interact with a mobile game app that has an interesting storyline, memorable characters, features, captivating themes, and unique visual graphics. All these game design factors lead to the success and popularity of your mobile game app.

With technological evolution and advancement, players demand more enchanting and challenging games. Dragon Ball, clash of Clans, PubG, ROBLOX, Candy Crush, Fortnite, Toon Blast, Fate, and many more games are ruling the App Store. The way to create a great mobile game app is to create an excellent storyline that delights users and keeps them hooked on your game app.

However, the reason for creating a game app on the iOS platform is that Apple offers a more advanced and secure environment with an outstanding user interface and user experience.

What are the different game design principles?

The first step is to define what type of game you want to create as there are different categories of games, including casual single-player, multiplayer, location-based, role-playing, or multipurpose games. However, choose the genre of the game such as a battle game, action-adventure game, racing game, fighting game, real-time strategy game, or other kinds of games. This helps you in categorizing your game and researching your target audience.

Basically, game designing is the principle of offering an exceptional experience to players from the beginning to the end of the game. Create a game design flow that describes how the player will move through the game. Start designing the game level by keeping the first stage simple and engaging, then move towards designing the challenging stage as the user progresses. If the game is challenging from the start, then the player might get frustrated.

The following are the game design principles:

Gameplay Mechanics

The game mechanics refers to the rules that the player follows within the game world. Game developers must create game mechanics to help players understand the rules and procedures of the game. It also offers the structure for how the game reacts to players.

Game Design Level

The game designing process involves the creation of game design levels. Creating game stages that entice players can be a beneficial factor. Begin with a simple level, then proceed toward designing hard levels that increase their level of excitement.

Gameplay Options

Offering customized gameplay is one of the latest game trends by which players can customize their characters & costumes and other things. The players can protect themselves by selecting the equipment according to their weaknesses and skill levels.

Feedbacks and Rewards

Providing rewards to players enables them to be more productive towards the game. Extra points, coins, badges, and rewards can make the player more engaged with the game.

Core Mission

Give players the mission and incentive of playing your game. Without the mission, players might get confused about what to achieve in the game.

How to develop a game app for iOS?

The following are the different steps involved in the creation of the game app development.

1. Create a game story

The first step is to come up with a game idea that help you in creating a top-notch game app. The idea of the game app comes with the research, you need to research the game apps that are trending on the App Store. Know your target audience and come up with a fantastic idea and compelling game story. You can also take inspiration or hints from the existing games on how to build your game app.

A good idea is the heart of the game app which comprises characters, features, stages, levels, and different components included in the game. Perform brainstorming sessions with your team to bring an innovative and killer game idea to the table that attracts a large target audience. A well-researched game with the touch of the latest technologies such as AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) can be a great hit.

2. Create the structure of the game

After you finalize the game idea, create the structure of the game by designing game wireframes. Wireframing is a visual representation of the game app that includes the layout, user flow, functionalities, and game screens. It’s roughly sketched on the paper to make further amendments easily. Once the wireframes are tested by the team, the prototypes are created on the computer software.

Prototypes are the early sample or model that is used to test the concept or process of the game. Prototype testing is taken at the user’s end to test how the overall game process works. It’s one of the most essential factors in game app development that helps in creating a fully functional game app. After the approval of the final draft, the design team moves towards the creation of the user interface and graphics of the game. The designers design the texture, graphics, characters, and other objects of the game in a 2D or 3D environment.

3. Implementation

The game app development and implementation stage starts with the selection of the right mobile game engine and programming language for your iOS game app. There are a variety of iOS platforms and engines that help you to develop the next generation of games with breathtaking realism. The following are the game engines that support iOS game app development.

• Unity
• Clickteam Fusion 2.5
• AppGameKit 2.0
• libGDX
• Godot
• JMonkey3
• Unreal Engine

After the selection of the mobile game engine, the team of developers starts coding the game app. Developers code the different features and functionalities including the characters, game levels, stages, and other important features. Features like artificial intelligence, navigation, collision, etc. can add great value to the mobile game. Database creation is also included, in which the data of the players is stored. All the storyline that is designed in the first step is implemented in this phase to create a top-class iOS game app.

4. Testing

Testing is one of the crucial steps in game app development to ensure the game developed is working well in terms of speed and functionality. The QA team performs different types of testing such as performance testing, functional testing, compatibility testing, localization testing, usability testing, etc. Testing helps in identifying errors, bugs, and broken codes in the game to make it fully functional and robust. The game is tested by many users in open beta before the release to ensure usability, as it is critical to provide a fantastic user experience that will contribute to the game’s success.

5. Launch and maintenance

Once your mobile game has been extensively tested, it’s time to publish it on the market. You can market your game across different platforms to reach a broader audience if you choose multi-platform. This is the most important stage since people will download and play your game on their smartphones and tablets. Your mobile game has a better chance of succeeding if it has more downloads.

Game maintenance is an essential phase that helps you to keep your game app updated with new and latest versions. You can add new features, upgrade the performance, and enhance the speed of your game app. Moreover, you can scan for viruses and bugs in the maintenance phase.

6. Monetization strategy

Monetization means earning through different strategies, which include ads, in-app purchases, premium versions, Paidmium versions, and pay-per-download. All these are the different ways to earn through your game app. Let’s explore what these strategies offer.

• Ads: Pay-per-click ads are the best way to generate revenue because whenever a user clicks on an Ad link or a video-you get paid.

• In-app purchases: The in-app purchase is an effective mobile game monetization strategy in which users pay to purchase the game app.

• Freemium versions: In this model, a free trial or demo is given to the player. After the player likes the game, they download the full version of the game.

• Premium version: The premium version is a mix of paid and freemium, which means that the app built on this pricing model offers a mixture of paid and freemium features. Since mobile users want to access the premium features, they pay to download and install the game app.

Final words

Developing a mobile game is an interesting yet challenging task that requires a brilliant game idea and storyline that appeals to players. For this purpose, we’ve created this guide for developers to help them in creating the next-generation iOS game app. The above-described steps are the basic and simple procedures of game development. But to start with the game you need to think of a creative and unique game idea along with an exceptional storyline. Research your idea, and then design the wireframes of the game. In this way, you can create an outstanding iOS game app.