Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10. Balancing,
Tuning,
and
Polishing Mobile Games
When a game comes to the final steps of its development, all efforts should be dir-
ected towards adjusting the small details, which make a difference between a good
game and a great one. The competition is high in this industry and no game can make
its way against its competitors if it is less than perfect.
Making a game perfect can have several, and often subjective, meanings. As games
are interactive media they can only be perfect inside the space defined by their inter-
actions with the players. This means that a game can never be great by itself, but it
can only be great in the perception that gamers have of it.
Basically games should meet the players' expectations at several levels; they should
run smoothly, be fun to play, provide a reasonable amount of gameplay, and make
players feel at ease with the game controls/interface, among others.
Each of these topics falls into a different category of actions, or set of actions that you
as game developers, should perform to achieve an optimal result with your game. In
this chapter we will talk about balancing, tuning, and polishing (mainly), explaining the
aim of each and the best practices to perform them efficiently.
We also in this chapter finally top off the Unity tutorial, by adding the final touches to
improve the gameplay provide an interface and offer better aesthetics. This will lead
us to a better polished game, which is the aim of this chapter.
Balancing
Balancing has mainly to do with the longevity (longevity represents how long a game
is played by a player in his life) of a title, as it affects the quality of the interaction
between the player and the game he is playing.
Let's think of games as dynamic systems. As with any system, games must have
some kind of equilibrium state that allows the system itself to perpetuate. In our meta-
phor, the longer the equilibrium is kept, the better the longevity of a game.
