Android Game Development Company

Android game development means creating a game that’ll run on Android OS. To make an Android game, a game developer uses various tools, from game engines that allow developing to Android as a part of their functionality (Unity, Godot, Unreal Engine 4’s with AGDE for debugging, Defold, etc) to Android Game Development Kit, provided by Google. We prefer using Unity but are always up to adopting your SDK/environment if your game design requires it.

The first and main reason businesses opt for outsourcing game development is a lack of talent and time pressure. Outsourcing to a proper tech partner, as we’ve discussed, allows to cut down on recruiting/hiring/onboarding/office space expenses while doing whatever needs to be done for the project. 

Game publishers and studios often take to outsourcing to cover a specific shortage by introducing engineers, artists, animators, or other specialists from a partner company to their in-house gamedev team. That helps introduce both needed expertise and new perspective into the team. 

Apart from that, in comparison to other methods of delegating various aspects of gamedev to outside contractors, outsourcing is often more reliable: it’s easy to check out their portfolio, play their games, or talk to their previous clients (and referrals are a great signifier of a good partner.) 

Each studio has its own approach to how to create an Android game, so we’ll describe ours. 

1. Game project analysis. You come to us with an idea, and we go through a set of meetings where we establish – approximately – what aspects of work we’re going to cover, what the timetables we’re going to be working within are, what specialists are needed to complete the project. 
2. Terms of reference/Estimation of cost and terms. After the meetings, we’re summing up the estimation of a project’s cost for you, — and, if you approve the budget, sign the contract & NDA, and get to work. 
3. Roadmap development. At this stage, we plan game development in more detail: gather references we have (like GDD — game design document — if you already have one, sketches, ideas, documents on the game’s narrative, etc.) and prioritize the task list. If there’s no GDD, it gets to the top priority. Then, the next stage is GDD development — which involves game and narrative designers, art directors, lead developers, and other people who are going to maintain your vision for the game throughout the development. 
4. Art production. Our game artists work with narrative designers, level designers, and engineers to create a visual representation of your world: its inhabitants, environment, visual effects, and so on. They animate the art assets, make sure the future game screens will look good on as many Android OS variations as possible, and draw flexible, adaptable UI for controls. Then, they transfer the art assets to tech artists who prepare them for integration into the game’s engine. 
5. Engineering & Testing. Our developers work hard to bring life into the game by working within game engines, tuning the game’s performance up, making sure it looks good/works properly on different Android screens. Then, our Game QA specialists walk through the game/write tests to make sure there are no bugs and errors. 
6. Vertical slice/Early access release. We’re releasing the chunk of the game we’ve completed (or the entire game – depending on the project’s deadlines/requirements) to see how players like it. We collect feedback and data from various metrics, we look at players’ behavior with the game’s UI/different levels — then, we analyze what we can fix or change to make Android players’ experience more smooth & pleasant. 
7. Game’s release. We’re releasing the full version of the game, following it up with marketing/ads campaigns for promotion. All bug fixes & insights from players’ analytics are implemented before release. 
8. Support & LiveOps. Android games often grow by adding more content in the post-production Game live ops stage: new features, rewards, levels, modes, etc. We’re helping you to develop those things and add them to the game. We’re also supporting it, addressing players’ difficulties/bug reports with new fixes and making sure there is as little friction as possible in gameplay.  

Note, that other game studios may utilize other approaches to the Android game development pipeline, and that’s totally valid. If you want to build a game within your process, we can do that as well.

This is often asked as a part of a larger how to create a game on Android question, and the answer is: it depends. Approximate calculations are these: our game developers create small puzzle games within about 3-5 months; bigger titles, with multiple levels, fighting system, extensive economy, branched dialogues, etc. will take about 6-12 months. Apart from mechanical complexity, the duration of the project also depends on what kind of art you’d like to see in your Android game: generally, 3D artists work longer than 2D artists, even for mobile. So even a small one-chapter story with extensive 3D character & environment art & animated cutscenes can take up to 4-7 months or more to develop.