Designing a mobile game to generate player data -- lessons learned

Abstract: User friendly tools have lowered the requirements of high-quality game design to the point where researchers without development experience can release their own games. However, there is no established best-practice as few games have been produced for research purposes. Having developed a mobile game without the guidance of similar projects, we realised the need to share our experience so future researchers have a path to follow. Research into game balancing and system simulation required an experimental case study, which inspired the creation of "RPGLite", a multiplayer mobile game. In creating RPGLitewith no development expertise we learned a series of lessons about effective amateur game development for research purposes. In this paper we reflect on the entire development process and present these lessons.