I haven't posted or read an article on this site for a while it seems, so I may be going over the same ground as many others before me, bare with me if you can.

I believe this an overlooked part of game creation. It's a something that can be all done in a block in the design process of your project, or on going thing in your project when you need, or a combination of both, of course.

Essentially what is research is basically what you do for everything else. School assignments, in laboratories to discover stuff, usually associated with quite boring and tedious types of ventures. Of course, i'm not going to lie, research for games can be quite like that. That is, of course, if you're not sure what your looking for.

It is important to establish something you are looking for when conducting research, ie, what type of game your want, what do people want in a game, what kind of graphics do I have available...they can be broad or specific.

There are different types of research you can conduct. I've split these up into catagories. Technical, benefitial, practical.

Technical
This is similar to research you would conduct for a school project. It involves going out into the wealth of information in the great wide world, through such means as the net, books and published materials, and getting information that can be used in your game.

This is usually something factual. For example, your making a military style game with real life weapons and you wish to find out some facts on an MP5 submachine gun so you can use them in your game, and it will be technically correct, so what you could do is goto the H&K website and check out the stats on the weapon so you can use them in your game.

Benefitial
Benefitial research, as I call it, is something that alot of Klikers do without knowing. Essentially what I mean by benefitial research is searching the web, ie, Clickteam, Daily Click, and looking for answers to your queries.

One good example would be if you are looking for a custom platform movement. One option would be to log onto Clickteam and searching through examples and tutorials for what your looking for in the file archives.

Of course, giving credit is one of the customary things to do in this, and most types of research.

Practical
A subtle means of research, infact, some would barely consider it research at all. The premise behind this form of research is getting out there, getting dirty and doing it yourself.

It can come in many shapes and forms. You may need to find out what an ant looks like when it walks from the top view, so what better way than go out into the wild world and check it out for yourself, take a few sketches and get a feel for it, then you can go and make it on your computer.

If may also come from the media. Books, tv, movies. You might want to use something as inspiration, from a movie. Maybe you like the look of the weapon Arnie uses in the movie Eraser. So you might have a look at it in the movie and get is much info from the movie so you can have something similar in your game.

The same goes with research from other games. You may want inspiration, or your interested to see what take they have on an engine, and how things react. You take not and try to design your game around it.


Basically research is all about using other sources to benefit your game. Often to make things easier, or more accurate.

Why make something yourself of the top of your head when you can have it done more convincingly with a little bit of research?

Keep that philosophy in mind, and maybe, just maybe, research could be what makes an average game into a great game.