Mobile Game Design Guide: Improve Gaming Experience for Kids.

I used to work as a games programmer in a company named Techy Mau Game Studios. In this job, I had a chance to play a lot of games. If you think about it, kids playing mobile games is quite rare and hard to achieve. On the other hand, some are good at playing. Let me tell you about some features of game design that will increase the appeal for kids.

Responsive Design

This feature is a very simple one but most games fail to implement it. If a parent or someone else has a child in his/her company, most of the time you see a tiny space on the home screen, and that’s the child playing. If you have just launched a game, here are two reasons why it will be a problem.

It will ruin the user experience because it is hard to see what is happening and your game will be a dead experience. It will ruin the marketing because your game will be cluttered with many things that take more time to discover.

Why do you need to be able to see the user?

Here are some good explanations for this feature:

Responsive design is good for a few reasons.

First of all, the company knows that parents have their children in their care, so they should take their attention into account when developing a game.

The kids can be in charge of the game experience.

It is important to provide an easy way for kids to learn about their games. Kids are reluctant to abandon a game once they start it. Therefore, providing them with easy and interesting ways to get out of the game.

Make them choose a setting for you or someone else to enter the game.

Provide child controls so that they will be able to decide how long they want to continue playing, whether to quit or play in just one moment.

Let them choose whether they want to play alone or with someone else.

Here is what it means:

1. Create a setting that resembles the parents’ behavior.
2. As a parent, you might want to close the game if your child plays for a long time.
3. The child should be in charge of the game.
4. If they choose to play alone, they can make some changes on the settings.
5. With Child Override, users can choose between game modes.
6. Give children a way to share their games.
7. Don’t force kids to quit the game or play at a certain moment.

You can help them by giving them the opportunity to choose if they want to play the game on the phone or tablet screen.

Making it easy for kids to see the game settings allows them to choose if they want to play on the phone or on the tablet screen.

Provide a better learning experience by allowing them to choose whether they want to choose how they want to learn about the game.

Allow them to have access to Google Play for Android devices.

Make your game accessible on smartphones and tablets, and provide easy controls so that it will be easy for kids to get around the game.

Conclusion

Parents need to understand what is happening. You will see that they will have their own opinion about game design and about what is fun for children. They have their own criteria and they will show their opinion on any mobile game. That’s why it’s best to create a fun and child-friendly game for kids with responsive design, kid friendly controls, and parental controls.

To make a game family-friendly, you need to work closely with kids and with parents. A game must be appropriate for kids and give them the experience of choosing whether they want to play or just continue on the device. When you are working with your child, it is important to create a game that does not go too far.