DAY 5

TODAY’S GOAL:

Choose a Theme & Style

How Does It Feel?

It’s important to know what your game going to feel like.  Will it be dark and brooding with a scared character going on a wild adventure?  Will it be retro pixel graphics where a brave knight ventures out to save his princess from the evil dragon?  This feeling and atmosphere can be broken down into two sections:  Theme & Style.

Theme is directly related to the world people will play in.  Is it a fantasy world?  Space opera?  Old wild west?  If your game is very simple, it might not even need a theme!  That is fine too, there are no hard rules here.

Style is simply how the graphics look.  For example your style could be minimal like Phases, in a retro pixel style or even cartoony like Angry Birds.

As you’ll learn, the best way to come up with ideas for style and theme and see what other popular games are currently doing.  Typically you’ll see big trends with game styles and themes.

Finally, it should be noted that you shouldn’t worry about WHERE you’re going to get your art (yet) we’ll focus on that in the next lesson.

Today’s Steps:

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

Research Popular Games

When in doubt, do research!  If you don’t know what style or theme you want to do in your game, then head over to either the iPhone App Store, Google Play Store or Steam and see what is currently popular.

Both style and themes typically ride trends.  Zombie games were all the rage a year ago, but you don’t see them as often now.  Pixel games are still on the rise after years and seem to be here to stay.  Fantasy games seem to always be popular and of course seasonal themes like Halloween or Christmas can be really good, but only for a limited time.

If you want a little help tracking the trend of your style or theme, then check out Google Trends.

When doing research think about the difficulty level of creation also.  Minimal games are popular right now and very easy to create, while heavy 3D graphic games are beautiful but take a lot of time and typically cost a lot of money.

Choose a Theme

When choosing a theme, think about your app store research as well as your gameplay type.  While most all themes can mix and match with any gameplay type, some are definitely better suited than others.

For example, a fantasy theme might not be best suited for a racing game.  Sure it can work, but the target markets are a bit different.  Most people interested in racing games probably don’t have a huge dungeons and dragons collection.

Some gameplay types work with nearly any theme.  For example, if you’ve chosen a gameplay type similar to the popular Halfbrick games Jetpack Joyride (helicopter) or Monster Dash (shooting runner), then you can pick pretty much any theme you can think of.

This is really all about YOU.  Simply pick a few themes you are interested in.  In the next lesson we’ll try to find art in one of these themes that will fit your game.

Choose A Style

Your style is simply the basic look of your games graphics.  They might be minimal, pixel, 2d, 3D, isometric, retro, arcade, realistic or something entirely different.

It’s worth noting the more complex the graphics then most likely the more expensive it will cost.  If you want to create a game with crazy CGI graphics like you might see on an Xbox or Playstation game, then prepare to spend a lot of money.  If you are on a very small budget then you might want to look at more simple 2D options like retro, minimal or pixel styles.

Today you want to make a decision on one or more styles you like, but don’t worry about where you’re going to actually get the art.  In the next lesson we’ll cover that in detail.

30 Day Game Challenge Lessons:

Week 1 – Game Ideas &  Basic Training

Week 2 – Creating Your Game

  • Coming Soon

Week 3 – Monetization & Setup

  • Coming Soon

Week 4 – The Launch

  • Coming Soon

friends4Know someone who might like to do the challenge with you?
Send them over to the challenge page so they can download Buildbox too:
www.buildbox.com/challenge/