The process of game development is a continuous one consisting of many milestones, and these milestones are mostly highlighted or bookmarked by mockups. Sometimes it’s difficult to put an idea into code without first putting it on paper or your desktop, and there are tons of free mockups online you can use to do just that.
Conceptualization and Visualization
Teams of game developers worldwide use mockups to conceptualize and visualize their ideas. With mockups, you can mock game mechanics, UI design, and other important things before starting development. Mockups help conceptualize:
● In-game mechanics: They can help developers visualize how movement will work in the game, or combat or resource management, take your pick.
● Art: They help developers visualize the characters and design them better. Also, you can use mockups to design the environment of the game.
● UI design: You can make a menu mockup and other interactive elements such as icons and buttons.
● Level layout: When you want the game to be as immersive as possible, you have to go through a few mockups to visualize the layout of the levels, terrain, obstacles, and other objects.
● Iterative feedback: Making a mockup of something means you’re opening it up to feedback from others, and you can iterate on that feedback over and over until the design is perfect.
● Vision alignment: So, mockups are something that you have before you have the real game, and they help you understand what the desired outcome of your development is.
Iterative Design and Prototyping
With iterative design, developers use mockups to continuously refine the concept and the design of their game. You can experiment with different designs, and you’re doing it in a manner that doesn’t chip away at your budget easily.
You can prototype, i.e. create a simple game element based on a mockup. Prototyping will help developers evaluate and verify some key concepts of their game like the level of engagement and how enjoyable it is.
User Experience Testing
UX testing evaluates some key concepts of the game, the flow and usability, and the overall intuitiveness of the interfaces and interactions it provides. Using mockups to perform user experience testing provides:
● Evaluation of usability: This takes into account how easy it is for the players to navigate through the menus and the overall interface of the game. Also, to evaluate how well players understand the mechanics.
● Flow analysis: With mockups, a developer makes sure that you have smooth gameplay. Before the game reaches the players, pain points are identified with mockups at the beginning.
● Game experience enhancement: User experience testing is something that ultimately helps improve the overall gaming experience, and mockups help developers prioritize features based on the testing done.
Documentation and Presentation
Documentation is almost always done with the help of mockups in game development. There are many decisions made during a single workday in game development. This includes decisions made on the looks and specs of some visual aspects of the game.
The mockups will be a reference for developers so that they can continue developing in the right direction. Apart from that, they’re also considered a shared visual language for the entire team or teams involved in the development of the game.
If something is missed in the documentation at some point, you can check the mockups for that documentation, and you’ll be able to see the changes implemented. You can even use the mockups to train new joiners in the company.
Conclusion
Throughout the development process, you can find chances to use mockups. It’s not only about the beginning and the refinement phases, mockups can help at later stages as well, maybe in a different way, but still helpful.