What specialists does the 2D game development team consist of?

Despite the transition of many major franchises to 3D, 2D titles are still very popular among gamers. What’s more, they have their own fanbase that favors simple game mechanics and simple interfaces.

However, despite the outward simplicity of 2D games, their development is a complex and time-consuming process that involves a whole team of developers. In this article, we will consider which specialists take part in it, and what is the responsibility of each of them.

Screenwriters
A scenario is a story that is revealed to a person as the game progresses. It fills the actions of the gamer with meaning and helps to involve him in the gameplay in the long term, which significantly increases the chances of the project for commercial success.

Game designers
In the production of game projects, a game designer performs one of the key tasks. He designs virtual worlds, develops mechanics, settings and does everything to make the gameplay interesting and exciting.

The profession of a game designer covers specialists of several different specializations:

• Level designers. They are engaged in level design, combining the results of the work of other specialists in specific locations.
• Interface designers. They design user-friendly interfaces that are essentially a human guide to the game universe. This includes a menu for pumping skills and character development, health bars, visual effects, and more.

• Systems game designers. Perform calculations of in-game metrics and determine the technologies with which the project will be developed to ensure its maximum performance.
• Narrative Designers. They work on a storytelling model in the game and are responsible for the emotions that a person experiences during its passage.
• Content designers. They develop content with which a person will interact during the game – dialogues, puzzles, riddles, and so on.
• Balance designers. Responsible for the difficulty of passing the game. It is they who determine how much experience or coins a character receives for completing a task, what armor indicators the armor has, and how much damage NPCs inflict.

Game Artist 2D

As the name implies, a 2D artist is a person who creates designs for characters, environments, and locations that will later be animated and integrated into the game environment. Several types of artists are involved in the production of game projects:

• Concept Artists – Generate visualization ideas and create art concepts.
• Illustrators – draw static images, such as the loading screen, advertising banners, and more.
• UX/UI artists — work on creating user-friendly game interfaces.
• Environment artists – draw landscapes, cities and other scenery that the gamer sees during the gameplay.
• Character artists – based on concept art, they create unique models of game characters. It can be people, animals or fictional creatures.

Animators

Motion designer “animates” static models created by artists, creates transitions, selects timings and does everything to make the movements of all objects inside the game look as realistic as possible. Most often in game development, game engines are used, such as Unity and Unreal Engine, which include many ready-made tools and patterns that greatly simplify the animation process.

Sound Designers

This specialist knows how magic, monsters and space sound. He is engaged in setting up and implementing all the sounds inside the game build and accompanies each action of the gamer with the corresponding sample. In addition, composers are also involved in the production of games, whose task is to develop the background music.

Developers

Programmers write thousands of lines of code to bring the idea of ​​game designers to life. Their responsibilities include:

• Create clean and optimized code.
• Project architecture design.
• Development of artificial intelligence responsible for the actions of NPCs.
• Creation of network infrastructure for games with multiplayer.
• Development of tools that optimize the work of other specialists.

For these purposes, different technologies and programming languages ​​can be used, the choice of which depends on the technical characteristics of the project and the platform for which it is being developed.

Technology stack for the production of browser games:

• Frontend is a JavaScript programming language, Vue.js and React.js frameworks.
• Backend – Python, Java or Node.js framework.

If the game is created for a smartphone, then the choice of technologies also depends on the operating system. For projects on IOS, the native programming language Swift is used, for Android, Java or Kotlin is used.

In addition, for the development of mobile games, the development kit from Google Flutter can be used, which makes it possible to create cross-platform applications that use the same code base to work on both operating systems.

Also, in the production of most 2D games, including AAA-level, game engines are often used – Unreal Engine, Unity, Construct and others. They contain an extensive set of ready-made tools, patterns and libraries, which allows you to release high-quality game projects much faster.

Testers
After the development is completed, the project is transferred to the QA department, where specialists perform its multi-level testing. In particular, the game is checked for:

• Compliance with the original plans.
• Presence of technical bugs.
• Interest for gamers.
• Difficulty passing.
• The absence of “workarounds” that will allow the game to go differently than it was intended.

This will allow the market to launch a prepared product that does not contain errors, which means gamers will be able to enjoy a flawless user experience.

Each game is a separate virtual universe that lives according to its own laws. We, at AVADA MEDIA, have extensive experience in creating such projects and can provide a well-coordinated development team.

To learn more about our approach to game development, contact us by filling out the feedback form.