The games production cycle

Now that the core part of your game development is complete, this is a good opportunity to step back to evaluate where you are in the context of a typical game development cycle.

Before you get started, check out the video below to find out what the full production cycle typically looks like on a Unity project.

There’s no single, universally accepted set of production phases in game development. Studios, educators, and communities can all use different models (alpha/beta, three-stage, four-stage, seven-stage, etc.). The labels often overlap and are used differently depending on team size, platform, and whether the game is premium or live service. The outline below is one practical way to think about the process; use it as a guide, not a rulebook.

The game development process can be divided into four phases:

• Preproduction
• Production
• Post-production
• Operations

Phase 1 - Pre-production

This phase is where you lay the groundwork for your game. You conceive ideas, create prototypes, and draft your game design document (GDD).

Phase 2 - Production

In this phase, you develop your game based on the blueprint set in your GDD. This involves designing, coding, and testing.

Phase 3 - Post-production

Here, you're wrapping up the development of your game. This involves additional testing, refining game mechanics, polishing the art, tweaking the sound, and preparing for release.

Phase 4 - Operations

Once the game is released, this phase involves managing updates, patches, and customer service.

After releasing a game, your job isn’t done. Especially for live games — which are games operated as ongoing services with regular updates, events, economies, and community operations — launching is just the start of a new cycle focused on growth, retention, monetization, and updates. This post-launch Operations phase has its own cadence, metrics, and production rhythm, which is often as demanding as initial development.

Reflect

Reflect on your journey so far. Although your journey didn’t mirror the typical production process in a game studio, your project has gone through several phases.

• You could consider the initial build of your 2D or 3D game with basic GameObjects as part of pre-production, since it served as a prototype or proof of concept for your full game. Creating your GDD was also a pre-production task.
• Following that, you entered the production phase when you implemented the audio, VFX, UI, animation, materials, and lighting guided by your GDD.

Now, you could consider yourself entering the Post-production phase.

Think about what's left to do. It's common to feel like your game is done by the end of the Production phase, but there's still much left to do in Post-production. This is the time to assess the game, implement fixes and improvements, and prepare for release.

Check out the video below to hear about the Post-production phase and why it’s such a critical part of the game development process.

For more information on the production cycle, check out this tutorial on the real-time production industry.

In larger studios, different roles are assigned to specific individuals, but in smaller studios or for solo developers like you, it's necessary to wear multiple hats.

Check out the video below to learn about the diverse career paths of some of our established creators.

Now let's look at some of the roles within two major categories:

Art and design

• Art director: Ensures the overall look and feel of the game is consistent and in line with the vision of the game.
• Concept artist: Generates the initial ideas for characters, environments, objects, etc., usually in 2D form.
• 3D artist: Creates 3D objects and backgrounds and works on optimizing graphics performance.
• 2D artist: Creates 2D objects and backgrounds, optimizes graphics performance, and creates storyboards and concept images.
• Audio designer: Creates and implements sound effects, voice overs, and music to enhance the immersive experience.
• Character artist: Sculpts and models characters and their assets such as hair, accessories, armor, and weapons.
• Lighting artist: Develops optimized lighting effects and creates post-processing effects such as bloom, ambient occlusion, depth of field, and color correction.
• Visual effects artist: Creates realistic and stylized visual effects, such as lava, smoke, and fire.
• Animator: Creates and optimizes high-quality animation of all moving characters and objects.
• Game/level designer: Constructs and implements gameplay, conducts playtesting, implements feedback, and validates playability with the testers, level artists, and gameplay programmers.
• Technical artist: Works with artists and programmers to implement their work within the final product, helping to bridge the gap between these two key areas of development.

Programming

• C# developer: Develops new features and applications, manages the release of products, and contributes to the coding foundation of the game.
• Gameplay programmer: Analyzes and understands the game design documents and develops gameplay systems such as player's actions, character's behaviors, game elements, and game progression.
• UI/interface programmer: Codes user interfaces to meet the intent of the project's design and flow and integrates UI systems into features.
• Quality assurance technician: Finds and reports bugs, writes test cases and plans, and maintains the quality of the game.

Reflect

Reflect on your journey so far and try to identify the roles you've taken on. You might find you've played at least eight of these roles. Which one has been the most interesting?

For more in-depth information on these roles and others, you can check out this Roles and careers for real-time creators tutorial. Additionally, Unity offers Unity Elevate, a mentorship and professional development program focused on helping underrepresented creators and developers grow in the real-time 3D (RT3D), gaming, and interactive content space. Feel free to explore it to learn more.

Before you embark on Post-production, you should critically evaluate your game to figure out what needs to be done.

A critique in the games industry involves analyzing your game from a holistic perspective, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and determining areas of improvement.

You can carry out the critique yourself or ask others for their feedback. Be open to criticism and ensure you record the notes for future reference.

To critically evaluate your game, follow this step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Prepare for review

• Ensure your game is playable from start to finish without major bugs.

Step 2: Identify testers

• Find a diverse group willing to playtest your game.

Step 3: Provide instructions

• Give clear directions on how to play the game and what to look out for.

Step 4: Playtest

• Let testers play without interference, observing their experience for insights.

Step 5: Gather feedback

• Collect feedback through conversation or a questionnaire, seeking honest and thorough comments.
• Questions you might ask could include the following:
• What did you enjoy about the game?
• What did you dislike about the game?
• Did you experience any technical issues or bugs?
• Were there parts of the game that felt confusing or frustrating?
• Was there anything in the game that felt unnecessary or out of place?
• Did the game feel too easy or too hard?
• What, if anything, would you change about the game?

Step 6: Self-evaluation

• Play your own game critically, imagining you're a first-time player.

Step 7: Analyze feedback

• Look for common trends or issues in the feedback you've received.

Step 8: Implement changes

• Prioritize feedback based on its impact on player experience, then make changes.

Step 9: Repeat

• After making changes, start the process over again. Iteration is key in game development!

Developing your critical evaluation skills is crucial to creating a successful game.

In the games industry, intellectual property (IP) refers to the ownership of creative ideas, such as the game concept, characters, and storyline. It's important to understand that while you should protect your unique game ideas, it's not always necessary to worry excessively about IP for learning projects like this one.

Intellectual property law” by Nick Youngson is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. It is attributed to Alpha Stock Images.

Protecting your ideas in the game development world is a valid concern. Larger studios often take steps to ensure their concepts and designs aren't copied or leaked. One such step involves the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in situations such as new hires or collaborations with other entities.

An NDA is a legal contract between two or more parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with each other for certain purposes but want to restrict from third-party access. An NDA is a tool designed to protect sensitive information from becoming publicly known or used without permission.

In the context of your game development project, using an NDA is probably not necessary. If your primary goal is learning and not commercializing your game, the need for an NDA decreases significantly. Instead, open feedback could be more beneficial to your growth as a game developer.

For more information on intellectual property and how it applies to game development, you can check out our Copyright for creators tutorial.

In this tutorial, you learned about the game development process and the roles involved in making a game. You also learned briefly about how to critique your game and about NDAs. In the next tutorial, you’ll step back into the Editor to learn more about configuring player input.