Things to keep in mind for professional games.

[Luminous Wizard]

Hey everyone,

 

I recently contacted a few sponsors to get their input and feedback about my games and created a basic summery of the requirements they would like. I am not sure whether ALL must be considered depending on the sponsor, but it definitely makes your game look more professional

 

Some of you may know all this already, but for GameDevs who are breaking in to the industry it could help them.

 

Here's the general requirement for creating a professional looking HTML5 games:

 

- Offers the player a deep in game experience and give the player a reason to return to the portal for multiple gaming sessions.

- Works perfectly on Android, iOS, Windows Phone 8 and PC (if yes, name the device(s) you have tested it on).

- It is optimized for phone and tablet.

- Works in full screen (no URL bar visible) and automatically scales to any high/low resolutions (no black borders visible )

- Handles device rotation automatically (showing “please rotate screen” information).

- Has a loading bar and optimized loading times.

- Sound can be turned off/on (if there are any).

- Text is separated from images (Google Web Fonts may be of help here).

- Text is loaded from an external file to make localization easy.

 

That is what I have gathered so far.

 

And there you go, if you have anything else to add, I will add it to the list  

[Gio]

Thanks for the list.

 

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever been asked to do any localization or move text out of images? I used to be really careful not to put any text into images, but seeing as nobody ever cared about that, these days I don't care either Maybe it's just me though?

 

I suppose if your game is very text-heavy that may be different, but I'm just asking about normal arcade-type games here.

[haden]

Thanks for the list.

 

Just a curiosity, has anyone ever been asked to do any localization or move text out of images? I used to be really careful not to put any text into images, but seeing as nobody ever cared about that, these days I don't care either Maybe it's just me though?

 

I suppose if your game is very text-heavy that may be different, but I'm just asking about normal arcade-type games here.

 

There are at least 5 sponsors that ask regularly for text translations. Most of them don't really care if the text is separated from the images, but some sponsors require the text to be translated to 8 languages! so it may become easier if the text isn't put into images.

[Gio]

Does that also apply to games that only have text like "Yes", "No", "Start", "Help", "Quit" in your experience?

[mentuat]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever been asked to do any localization or move text out of images? I used to be really careful not to put any text into images, but seeing as nobody ever cared about that, these days I don't care either  Maybe it's just me though?

 

 

Using proper text (rather than text in images) has been on my todo list for over a year now - but to be honest, with the kind of simple games I make (where the only text is on buttons, title screen and a word or two for basic instructions) I just haven't really needed to.

 

I have a workflow set up now to easily integrate text with assets and export as tile-sheets in language specific folders so it's about as optimised as could be 

 

Often I find the text needs to be positioned to fit awkward spaces that would be a pain to get right dynamically and I like to apply various filters and effects to the text so it blends in with the game screens.

 

I haven't had anyone pull out of a deal due to non-dynamic text so far - but then I avoid sensible client work that would (and should) require it!

 

One day I'll get round to doing it properly!

[alex_h]

Does that also apply to games that only have text like "Yes", "No", "Start", "Help", "Quit" in your experience?

 

Yes, they even ask for the game title to be translated too! Which is generally a pain to do as it doesn't tend to be possible to use dynamic text for a nicely drawn title. For my most recent game I managed to avoid using any text at all other than the game title, specifically in order to bypass the extra work involved in translation.

[haden]

Does that also apply to games that only have text like "Yes", "No", "Start", "Help", "Quit" in your experience?

Yep, in my case, all game text was translated, except the title of the game. The best way is to avoid text as much as possible and use graphics and icons that are easy to understand.

[haden]

Using proper text (rather than text in images) has been on my todo list for over a year now - but to be honest, with the kind of simple games I make (where the only text is on buttons, title screen and a word or two for basic instructions) I just haven't really needed to.

 

I have a workflow set up now to easily integrate text with assets and export as tile-sheets in language specific folders so it's about as optimised as could be 

 

Often I find the text needs to be positioned to fit awkward spaces that would be a pain to get right dynamically and I like to apply various filters and effects to the text so it blends in with the game screens.

 

I haven't had anyone pull out of a deal due to non-dynamic text so far - but then I avoid sensible client work that would (and should) require it!

 

One day I'll get round to doing it properly!

Dynamic text can be a pain indeed, you need to make sure the text fits correctly into the UI and wraps up when needed, this is a painful process especially that the text may look ugly in the end because you can't have those awesome effects applied to it.

[MadOwl]

It's pretty strange that this topic is dead.

TS provided pretty nice set of requirements (some lines are copied from the reqs. of one decent publisher I must add).

I'll add my personal comments to these requirements from the point of view of regular developer:

Quote

- Offers the player a deep in game experience and give the player a reason to return to the portal for multiple gaming sessions.

It's funny but it's the requirement that has the lowest priority for publishers (IMO): you can sell total crap puzzles and sliders with trash gameplay but with extreme quality arts and sounds.

Quote

- Works in full screen (no URL bar visible) and automatically scales to any high/low resolutions (no black borders visible )

- Handles device rotation automatically (showing “please rotate screen” information).

I am still wondering why the developers of html5 frameworks like Phaser can't provide a decent solution for these problems.

Quote

 

- Text is separated from images (Google Web Fonts may be of help here).

- Text is loaded from an external file to make localization easy.

 

Theme of html5 games localization deserves more topics on this forum. You have different fonts, you have embedded fonts, you have bitmap ones. You have COMPLETELY different performance. 

Publishers ask to separate text and images, but who cares if you use bitmap fonts - you'll need to provide bitmap fonts for Spanish, English, French, Japanese,... You can't just translate your .js files where you save your strings that need to be localized - you need to provide bitmaps.

So much pain, friends, so much pain.