2. Concept and First Sketches - AJBurasai/Mobile-Game-Development GitHub Wiki

I will preface this section by stating that I personally do not play many mobile games, the ones I have played are usually ports, remakes, or emulations of existing PC or console games. That being said, I did have a lot of fun playing Cookie Clicker when that arrived on the app store when I was around 13. I'd played the original on PC and even though this app was not created by the same developer, I still found it satisfying to rack up ludicrous numbers in the back of the classroom. That was the initial inspiration for me creating an idle clicker style of mobile game (that and I'm also tired of working with cameras and velocity).

Here are some sketches from my notebook:

The first two pages detail the first mock-up I created for the main screen button layout as well as some random ideas I jotted down for the general concept of the game.

In the next set of pages I added more detail and properly annotated a clearer sketch for the main game screen and its features.

The general concept for this game is that you are a wizard who creates (and sells) potions across the realm by clicking on a cauldron, eventually becoming the arcane equivalent of a soulless corporate overlord as you rack up a ludicrous amount of potions and optimise how many you produce per second. You can buy upgrades to passively brew potions.

As evident from the screen sketches, I intend to have the game be entirely in portrait mode, this is the most common orientation with clicker mobile games - this also makes it incredibly accessible to my target audience as its much easier to play one handed and not give too much attention to the screen at any given time while you're standing on the train or something. Since I own an iPhone, I will initially be building for and testing on that platform.

Since the game will be quite simple, I don't plan on using a huge amount of mobile specific features other than the touch screen and vibration for haptic feedback; banner ads are also a feature I definitely want to implement somewhere down the line.