The Mobile Phone has within a short span of 5-7 years, evolved from being a communication tool to becoming ‘A way of life’ for a substantial part of the Indian populace. The ongoing mobile revolution is a global phenomenon and this handy device is today not only used for communication, but is also the new media on which many bets for the future are being laid.
Voice, Data, Video & More is the new Mobile mantra. The More includes a host of interactive applications, a frontrunner amongst them being gaming.
While PC & Console game development has yet to take off in India in a big way, mobile gaming is already in lap 2, speeding ahead.
Even as this new and exciting segment of gaming grows rapidly, Animation ‘xpress brings to its readers a case study on the Making of A Mobile Game
Think of the entire Mahabharata engraved on a single grain of rice.
Creating a mobile game is as refined an art.
Generally for animators and VFX artists it is common place to work on 2K, 4K resolutions with tons of filters and shaders and with entire render farms at their disposal. In sharp contrast, the small screen size of the mobile, the limited processor speeds, the memory and the bandwidth constraints make content development for the mobile a different ball game altogether.
In the mobile universe,optimization Finding the solution that is the best fit to the available resources is the keyword.
For development studios aspiring to enter the big league of PC & Console, there are several factors that make mobile game development a viable option to begin with. The cost of developing a mobile game title is miniscule as compared to PC & Console, even then the game developer has the world as a market. Many a times Indian developers develop titles that have global appeal, titles that would do well in India but would do equally well or better, abroad.
One such title all set to release in the next few months is Paradox Studios’ game based on Jean Claude Van Damme. The game releases in 2 variants, Van Dammage and Van Damme Kickboxing.
Van Damme Kickboxing allows the player to assume the role of Jean Claude Van Damme and fight a multitude of sinister enemies, action movie style! Kidnapped by inhuman villains for twisted entertainment purposes, Van Damme must fight his way to freedom through successive underground arenas and face villains that become more and more difficult to overcome. The game offers three levels of difficulty and two Training’ levels that prepare the hero for the bosses that lurk ahead. The Mobile Game equips Van Damme with nothing but his superior martial art skills, providing the players full opportunity to execute a range of signature Van Damme moves and attacks on their opponents.
As a game development exercise, what sets the game apart from most of the other games is the use of the body-part technique. Besides, the game has a vast ensemble of characters (7) with a huge repository of moves unique to each character.
Animation ‘xpress is proud to feature Paradox Studios’ Van Damme Kickboxing in its case study on Making of a Mobile Game.
*(Animation ‘xpress case studies are now enabled with Text Tips. Hover your mouse over a technical term to read its definition. All Text Tips are highlighted)
*(For those breezing through the study: “Don’t miss the module on ‘Pixel Art & Final Animation’ and the one on ‘Optimization Techniques!”)
Play the Animation ‘xpress Shift Spotting game – on the ‘testing & porting’ page” !!!
The Development Life Cycle
1. Ideation & Pitch
2. Game Design
3. Characters/Styling
4. Animation Pre Pro
5. Pixel Art
6. Optimization Techniques
7. Coding
8. AI
9. Testing & Porting
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Credits & Team Pics
Researched, Written and Designed by Anand Gurnani
With Special thanks to the entire team at Paradox Studios’ including Anurag Khurana (CEO), Salil Bhargava (Chief Marketing Officer), Ninad Chhaya (Executive Producer), Anand Rajwanshi (Project Manager – Art and Animation), Chirag Desai (Producer and Lead Game Designer), Jaideep Hotha (Wireless Manager), Amit Suri (Team Lead – Wireless Games), Jaydev Dhakan (Team Lead – Testing) and Ritesh Panchal (Team Lead – Art and Animation).
Also thanks to Rohit Wadhwani (Programmer, Indiantelevision.com) for his technical assistance and inputs; and to Bhavya Arora, Saurabh Kirtane and Shiv Dulipati (Writers, Paradox Studios) for sharing their writing skills and inputs.