Creating a video game that captures players' attention and becomes trendy is a dream for many game developers.
Not only is there excitement and fulfillment for a video game developer in creating a popular hit for the masses and impacting popular culture as we know it, but the resulting impact can also potentially be highly lucrative.
With the right approach and careful consideration of various game design factors, you can increase the chances of creating a game that resonates with the gaming community.
In this blog post, we will explore valuable tips and design principles to help you create a video game that stands out, attracts a wide audience, and hopefully, becomes a hit in the gaming industry!
Define a Unique Concept For Your Video Game
The foundation of any successful video game lies in its concept. To create a hip and popular game, you need a unique idea that differentiates your game from others in the market.
Video game developers and artists alike can take inspiration from various sources such as books, movies, their own real-world experiences, and even other games to generate innovative and original concepts.
However, with the advent of AI technologies and video game ideation tools/platforms such as Ludo.ai, video game developers can rapidly speed up this ideation process and get down to designing the video game they want at a much quicker pace.
With Ludo.ai’s Game Ideator, you can generate video game concepts and ideas quickly using text prompts, reference images, or even use existing video game titles as ways to generate fresh new ideas.
Be sure to explore different genres and niches to find an idea that not only excites you as a developer but also has the potential to engage players.
Focus on Gameplay and Fun Factor
While graphics and visuals are essential, gameplay and the overall fun factor of your game should take precedence to create an experience that players come back to time and time again.
Greatly designed games typically follow one universal design principle: “easy to learn but hard to master”. This is true of video game classics such as Tetris, and mobile game hits such as Flappy Bird and Candy Crush.
Players seek video games that are easy to pick up and get into, yet provide a deep game mechanic, experience, world, or story to enjoy and immerse themselves in. The deeper a game system or level is, the more enjoyable it is to replay it again and again, increasing its depth and replayability factor.
Ludo.ai can make this process easier with its Game Elements feature. Create new game mechanics, storylines, characters, enemies, items, locations, and more with the powerful help of AI in just a few steps.
Make sure to playtest the experience to keep the gameplay intuitive, and incorporate plenty of player feedback to help refine your game and make it more enjoyable.
Develop a Strong Visual Identity
Last but not least, we know video game visuals play a significant role in attracting players. A distinct style, look, or visionary art direction is an instant attention-grabber that can give your game the edge it needs to rise above the market.
Ludo.ai’s Image Generator tool can help supercharge this creative process by providing game developers with powerful ways to create AI-generated images and gameplay graphics for their concepts and mood boards.
Choose from a wide selection of art and gameplay visual styles, use a combination of text prompts and image uploads to create and generate your artwork, and save your favorite images to your Game Concept to create a documentation of your game’s visual style.
Stay Informed About Market Trends
To create a trendy and popular game, it's crucial to stay on top of current market trends and see which video games are popular, and where video game design is headed.
As marketability could make or break a game, users may not play a uniquely designed game if it is far too “left field” or “out there” and doesn't fit into any established genre or label. This in turn could lead to a game being misunderstood, and being left unplayed.
This means video game developers must spend time researching the gaming industry, identifying popular game genres, and analyzing successful titles to produce a unique game that still belongs to one of the more popular and established game genres to have a shot at gaining user traction or attention.
Thankfully, you can supercharge your research process by discovering game development insights with Ludo.ai's research tools:
Daily Trends Tool
Ludo.ai Daily Trends lets you discover gaming trends, explore trending topics, new releases, and market analysis to drive game development. Leverage Ludo.ai to make informed decisions and validate winning concepts.
Stay ahead of the competition by researching which game topics are rapidly on the rise, and which are true chart toppers. Ludo.ai’s AI-powered game aggregation algorithm creates unique insights for developers to stay on top of the latest trends.
This means you can always stay in the loop for new game releases across all video game and mobile app stores. Ludo.ai track all games from the App Store, Play Store, Steam, and Itch. It will even show you insights about which topics are getting the most releases so that you won't miss the next big trend!
Market Analysis Tool
With Ludo.ai Market Analysis, you can research the gaming landscape for a specific game topic, or pitch your new game idea against other similar competing games.
How this works is that Ludo.ai will show you how a game topic has been performing over time and will tell you how likely it is for your new game to succeed in that landscape. This way, you can stop the guesswork and make well-informed decisions for your next game, instead of overthinking your concept or suffering from analysis paralysis.
Top Charts Blender Tool
Did you recently discover a couple of games in the top charts that you would like to combine into something new? Just click on each one and let Ludo.ai work its magic!
With Ludo.ai Top Charts Blender, our AI-powered Ideator will instantly generate dozens of new combinations for you to choose from.
Unlike other top chart tools or platforms, Ludo.ai makes it very easy to combine games from the top charts or generate games based on top charts games. This is a very easy approach to developing trendy games - just combine existing elements from trending games and let Ludo.ai do the work!
Search Tool
The Ludo.ai Search is a tool used by game developers for research. As we mentioned earlier, all video game developers want to create truly unique games.
Now how do you know if your game idea is unique and that it differs from other existing ones? That's what Ludo.ai Search is for.
Search can also be used for ideation purposes, instead of or in addition to generated results. For example, you can search for hundreds of icons of zombie games to get inspiration on how you can make a new zombie game icon that is different from the rest.
Enter any keyword, phrase, or game title to search for related games, images, and icons. Filter your search by platform, genre, release date, top developers, and more. More than 2 million games and 10 million game images are available at your fingertips!
Remember that while it's important to produce a unique video game, understanding the preferences and interests of the gaming community can help you align your game with the current market demands while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation.
Bonus Pro Tip: Use Ludo.ai’s “Trendy Mode” to Save Time and Effort
From the Game Ideator mode in Ludo.ai, you can create a trendy game with just a few clicks by using the “Trendy Mode” setting.
Trendy mode combines your prompt input with games that are currently trending in the market. Just change it from "Regular Mode" to "Trendy Mode" inside the Game Ideator and let Ludo.ai’s algorithm run wild for you!
Conclusion
Ultimately, investing in creating high-quality graphics, animations, and art styles that align with your game's theme and target audience will go a long way to making your game shine above the rest.
Be sure to go with a consistent look in art direction and pay attention to detail to establish a strong visual identity for your game, as it's the little things in art direction that end up making a big difference in the end!
