12 ways to have a popular game for handheld devices

Disclaimer: The author is the creator of free IOS game HeliGlide

What constitutes a good game for handheld devices?

I have been looking for this information before I embarked upon a more-than-adventurous journey of making an IOS game HeliGlide. I knew I would be making a simple app considering my coding skill. However, I wanted to include as many features of a good game as possible, in my app. 

Here are some nice features of a good game, according to me. The following features are more or less applicable to all games, whether IOS or Android.

1. Sufficiently Challenging – It is said that throw a challenge to a person and she/ he will accept it. The game should be increasingly challenging as we progress through the game. You may have a game where level of difficulty starts rising like Temple Run. Or, you may have different levels for different challenges like Angry Birds. There are also games with same challenge level like Flappy Bird, but it’s too challenging. The bottom line is people love challenges for them to come back to the game again and again.
2. Simple and easy to navigate menu – I have encountered many games like car racing and soccer games with multiple options. For example, soccer games provide you options like what is the team colour, strategy formation, which player to include, which stadium, day/night match, raining/ clear sky, etc etc. The quick & easy option to start the match is mostly absent. A novice user like me gets immediately lost and deletes the game in no time.
3. Intuitive Control – The control in the game should be intuitive and naturally flow. Also, a simple explanation of controls will help. It is not advisable for the user to figure out how to control the ball, car, bike, helicopter or whatever needs to be controlled. The user may delete the game even before he figures out the same.
4. Universal Game – The game should be playable on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch; with as many screen sizes and operating system as possible. For example, if you are developing a game for iPhone only, then you miss out millions of iPad and iPod users. Similarly, the same game should be present on Android platforms.
5. Game Center Integration – People love to compare where they stand versus their friends and the rest of the world. Also, gamers would like to earn badges for their accomplishments. Game Center achieves these and many more things.
6. Symbols for non-English users – If you have developed a game for English users then use the symbols by the side of menu tests. This is to make sure that gamers who don’t understand English can easily navigate through the menu.  Localizations would be a better choice, but again all languages are not supported.
7. Handle Interruption – This is a definite for games. During on ongoing game, if a call comes then the game should be able to pause itself.
8. Pause Game – This one when users want to pause the game. It is useful when the user is required to divert attention for something else.
9. Game Ends – It is my personal preference that an end result is achieved. It will have a burning desire to end the game by attaining some known goals. At the beginning user should be aware of when the game ends e.g., after the users reaches the level 20 or achieves the score 600. There is no hard and fast rule though. For example, there are hugely popular games like Candy Crush Saga and Boom Beach, where there is no end state in foreseeable future.
10. Sharing info through social media – Game should be easily shareable with friends through social media like facebook and twitter. A tight integration is useful but any form of sharing would do. There should be other options to share the game like mail, messages, etc.
11. In-app feedback option – User should be able to send feedback from the app itself. It allows easy way to provide feedback when the user is playing the game.
12. App website – For additional info about the game, app website is necessary. The website should provide detailed info about the game along with ‘how to play the game’ and feedback, at the minimum.

There are games with many more interesting features. However, I feel these features will at least make the app interesting for people to continue to play for sometimes.

Please send your feedback on agreement/ disagreement with this article. Also, I am looking for new interesting features you would like a game to have.