So You Think You Have a Great Mobile App and You’ll Make Millions!

As a mobile app developer I get many requests to work with someone who thinks they have the next great multimillion dollar app. Maybe they do and maybe they don’t.  However, there are some things they need to do even before getting to the coding stage.

Consider that today’s apps are developed by teams of experts with budgets exceeding $250,000. Apps continue to get more sophisticated and draw on the every improving resources of today’s smartphones including the increase in memory which now stands at 1GB. I remember when my desktop PC only had 256k of memory (but I am showing my age.) This is great in that the increased resources allow the creation of better, more colorful, sophisticated games but bad for us indies who do not have the resources to keep up with the big guys vis a vis Rovio.

So what do you do? As a small operator or designer you must come up with basic concepts or simple games that are killers from the start. Remember the original Fruit Ninja or Ant Smash? If you can do this you can keep your development costs lower and increase your chances for success.

Once you think you have the next great idea apply some structure to it long before considering coding. One of the simplest methods of structure you can apply is the Storyboard Technique. Used by film creators and story writers for many years it is simply drawing pictures of individual scenes in your app. The drawings do not have to be well done and could even be stick figures. However, sooner or later you will need good art.

The Storyboard Technique will need a few additions for an interactive application, however. For example you will need to add menu scenes showing what choices the user has. You’ll then need to show scenes of what happens when they select each menu item.

Once your Story boarding is complete and you are satisfied with your app the next step is creating some basic art and animations. This can be done in Photoshop and saved as a GIF file. No coding needed, some of this same art can then be coded into the game if it is good enough.

After, you have completed your Story boarding, some basic art, and animations you are ready to take it to a programmer but not before.

However, you are not done yet. Since you will be investing a large amount of time in this project it’s time to do some more evaluation. Be sure to Google your app by name and subject to see what is out there. Find a good name that is not taken in the app store. If you have to promote it under another name it will hurt your downloads. Make sure there are no major competitors out there with similar games. You cannot over search your potential app before you make any more investments of time and money.