How to design games for omni-channel distribution

Odobo’s COO Dennis Diaconescu and head of content strategy Mat Ingram on the pitfalls and opportunities presented by omni-channel game development

The rise of omni-channel gaming has dramatically increased the technical complexity of games development.

Rather than building in Flash to a fixed 4:3 viewport ratio, studios must now design an experience that remains attractive and accessible through multiple device categories.

Their games have to be delivered across a wide spectrum of connection speeds and types, suit different session lengths, and pass stringent requirements when they land in the shifting global regulatory environment.

Delivering the same high-quality gaming experience with these additional complications is placing considerable pressure on developers – particularly smaller studios working alone.

Tackling the problem

To tackle these new complexities and remain profitable, games must anticipate cross-device design challenges and regulatory roadblocks as early as possible, and build re-usable frameworks and technologies from the ground up in order to respond effectively to them.

Odobo provides precisely this kind of foundation: tools and technologies that allow smaller studios to overcome development and distribution bottlenecks without the cost of developing their own bespoke solutions to provide basic game functions.

Here are a few essential guidelines – taken from our own best practice guidelines – for creating omni-channel games.

Game development overview

Efficient game design and production for omni-channel distribution requires developers to consider many aspects of how, where and on what device their product will be consumed. We are going to discuss three of the main points on that list:

1. The user interface (UI) and composition – this handles how the game looks, and how the player is expected to interact with it.
2. Optimisations – the game’s pace, how it performs on different devices, and how well is works on different connection speeds.
3. Maths – adapting designs to suit different session lengths.

Our framework is built to efficiently handle device fragmentation, as well as making technological optimisations simpler and more seamless, allowing developers to concentrate on the creative aspects of their games rather than becoming hung-up on commoditised issues.

The optimal user interface

One of the most important considerations remains ensuring that your UI is carefully designed for each device. Developers should keep the experience as familiar as possible for the player moving between devices, whilst optimising certain elements for each screen size and input method.

Rather than thinking big and scaling down, a better approach is to start with the smallest form factor devices and work up – keeping functions as simple as possible and only adding features or substituting different elements when they become absolutely necessary.

Buttons on a small device need to be quite large, for instance, and properly spaced to avoid mis-hits, unlike on a desktop where users have the fine control of a mouse or touchpad.

Making the important things (gameplay assets and critical information) big and the less important things small is a sound foundation – even if it means redefining the importance you place on non-functional theme elements or characters.

Consider touch zones as well. If, for example, an iPhone is placed into landscape orientation using Safari, the browser bars disappear to give a beautiful immersive full screen experience, but they will reappear if certain areas are touched by the player.

This can be frustrating during play, and it’s a simple example of how important it is to optimise the layout and UI elements to avoid a poor player experience.

Making the most of optimisations

Optimisations relate to a game’s performance and fall into three categories: improvements to a game’s pace and feel; efficient use of the network via which the player is connecting; and making the most of the computational power and memory of the player’s device.

In reality, optimisations add little to the novelty of the game itself but, when optimised effectively, can contribute to making a good player experience exceptional.

A game feels “right” when it flows naturally, with no jitters, contains skippable win sequences, and feels snappy on every device. In particular, there should be no artificial pauses, holds or waits that interrupt the cadence of the gameplay.

From a networking perspective, GPRS, 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi networks all affect download stream speeds and asset latency. To get the player into the game as quickly as possible, whatever their connectivity status, Odobo’s Developer Program assists with the common considerations that omni-channel developers should give additional thought to:

• Required game assets, which should only be loaded when absolutely necessary. This usually means implementing multi-stage, background and lazy-loading techniques, which Odobo’s Game Development Kit (GDK) is purpose-built to handle.
• Reducing the quantity and format variance of media assets through optimised sprite sheet or atlas files. Via the GDK a device on a high-latency connection will benefit from only needing to fetch tens of individual files rather than hundreds.
• Using appropriate image and sound compression to reduce file sizes. While this is critical, developers should also avoid going too far, since the game still needs to look good on an increasing number of retina devices, and sound good in scenarios where the player is using headphones.

Hardware-wise, different product generations and device classes will have different computational, rendering and memory capabilities – all of which can alter the player’s experience if their differences are downplayed.

While it will be tempting to focus on the latest-generation hardware, where everything tends to look, sound and play perfectly, studios must bear in mind that players may not be on an accelerated upgrade path.

To accommodate operator minimum requirements and the largest number of players, developers should include popular older devices as part of their testing plans.

Odobo’s GDK features special test API calls to determine and communicate how performant the device is allowing developers to tailor the gaming experience to the device connecting to it. The best games will offer these kinds of special features for hardware so that lower-end devices still play perfectly smoothly and remain true to the game concept.

Adding it up

The third category of considerations relates to optimising the mathematical model of the game to satisfy players across different session lengths. On average, desktop sessions are three times longer than those on mobile, presenting a challenge for games with highly volatile bonus features (i.e. ones that trigger rarely but present big opportunities).

To put this into context, if a bonus feature is expected every 1 in 150 spins (on average, with five seconds per spin), that equates to 12.5 minutes of straight playing for the bonus to trigger – a window that exceeds the typical mobile session.

Choosing a single volatility profile to fit a game across all devices isn’t easy and developers may choose to increase the upfront mathematical complexity by offering multiple bonus features that address frequency (more common but less valuable) and reward (rare but valuable).

Part art, part intuition

Ultimately, an omni-channel developer has to think beyond marquee features, and focus on designing an experience they believe their players – desktop or mobile – want.

This new paradigm of game design is part art and intuition, and part science. There is no prescribed recipe for making the perfect game every time, but best practice guidelines can help to provide some structure.

The Odobo Developer Program contains tools, processes and comprehensive documentation designed to arm developers with everything they need to make a challenging and complex process as easy, cost-effective and fast as possible.

And as the omni-channel landscape continues place greater and more complex demands on developers, Odobo will continue working to allow them to concentrate on what they do best: design great games that reach the broadest possible audience.