Steps to Design an AR Game

In today’s turbo tech world, staying ahead in the design race can be quite challenging. While UI/UX is progressing, everyone now aims to simplify digital designing using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR). Without a doubt, it’s the next big thing.

While working on big projects, each game designer can fall into many pitfalls while going through the process; being structured and able to extract meaningful conclusions can really help the last mile.

So, if you are designing or thinking of designing an AR Game soon, I am sure you’ll get all the required help from this article.

Step 1: Framing the Idea

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

Before starting with the advanced development step, always focus on :

• What is our game about?
• What is unique about a game?
• Why is it worth making?

Step 2: Gamestorming — The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.

First of all, think about :

• Who will be your users (players, target audience)? I know you cannot get an exact idea who will end up playing it, but having a persona in mind will get you started
• Possible locations
• On a high level, what can be the “Mechanics” of your game/ digital product

Step 3: Stating a problem

https://blog.flexmr.net/evaluate-and-refine-your-market-research-strategy

• Research
• Model
• Evaluation

Step 4: Understand the capabilities of the digital device you are designing for. e.g. A mobile phone.

• What kind of information can it detect?
• How can the user interact with it?
• What kind of things can be detected in the world?

Step 5: Evaluating Ideas

Photo by Zainul Yasni on Unsplash

• Identify the reasons why the idea should not be selected.
• How much effort will it take to make?
• How much creative opportunity is there?

Step 6: Ranking all the brainstormed ideas (on a scale of 1–4)

Photo by Joshua Golde on Unsplash

You can keep this process anonymous if there’s a probability of conflict in your big team.

• Which ideas are worth solving?
• Which ideas have the most potential?

Step 7: Write the Initial draft of your “Design Document.” Make sure to add the below pointers.

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

• Overview of the game
• Highlight the most essential elements
• Reference images from movies, games or even from our daily lives
• Create inspiration and storyboards

Step 8: Setting up the “Game Mechanics”

• What can a player do in the game?
• What can he/ she interact with?
• What things in the game do?

Step 9: Designing Core Loop

• Identify the three most repetitive actions and place them in a loop. For example, the famous game — Pacman focussed on the below actions.

https://www.videogameworkshop.com/game-design/Core-Game-Mechanics.html

• What is the player doing over and over again?
• Are the mechanics significantly different, or is it part of a group?

Step 10: Designing MVP (Minimum Viable Product) — Focus on core loop. Please don’t overdo it.

I really liked how the Extra Credits guys (youtube channel) have explained it in a very informative manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCri1tqIxQ

• Focus only on the core experience
• Design individual features

Step 11: Playtesting (observe your testers closely)

Photo by Habib Dadkhah on Unsplash

• Define the aim of the prototype
• Before the playtesting, think about — How will you collect the data from users, and how will you use it?

Questions to ask:

• What don’t you understand about the game experience?
• What was the most difficult part while playing the game?
• What did you like or didn't like about the gameplay?

Happy Designing :))