Professional Game Development Services — NOVASOLUTIONS

Game development: an engineering challenge, not a gamble

The most common mistake is spending six months and budget on freelancers, only to rewrite the architecture from scratch. A game project is different from a web application. Decisions made in the first two weeks — engine, scene structure, network code — determine 80% of the cost. Our team has been in the industry for over ten years. We encountered most pitfalls and learned how to avoid them.

Why do 80% of startups rewrite architecture from scratch?

The reason is almost always the same: wrong engine choice or no technical brief. Clients start with a prototype on a random engine. When the project grows, they hit limitations that can't be bypassed without rewrites. We've seen projects where a mobile game on Unreal required 10 seconds of loading on an iPhone 12. Conversely, a card game on Unity consumed 2GB of RAM due to an incorrect Asset Pipeline. In every case, it could have been prevented at the start.

One client approached us with a 2D mobile runner stuttering at 20 FPS. Profiling showed 300+ draw calls on a single layer. We switched to texture atlasing, static batching, and LODs. Within two weeks the game hit stable 60 FPS on a mid-range Android device. Cost of fix: 40 hours. Cost of ignoring it: 2 months of rewrites and lost launch window.

What you get: deliverables and post-release support

We deliver not just code, but a working product with documentation and support. Below is the standard scope for most projects:

• GDD (Game Design Document) – detailed description of mechanics, economy, balance
• Architectural plan – stack selection, CI/CD, asset versioning system, scene and state plan
• Working builds every two weeks – a playable build for the client's platform
• Source code, all assets in formatted form, project in Git or Perforce
• Technical documentation – architecture description, network protocol, deployment instructions
• Integrations – analytics (GameAnalytics, Firebase), advertising, Steam SDK, IAP, Leaderboards
• Certification – passing App Store / Google Play / console reviews
• Team training – if the client plans to further develop the project internally
• Post-release support – at least one month: bug fixes, patches, crash monitoring

We don't sell hours — we sell results. Order a consultation, and we'll evaluate your project in one hour. Contact us — get a preliminary estimate within 24 hours.

Our step-by-step process for game development

Audit and Planning (2 to 4 weeks)

Before the first line of code — a technical audit of the idea. An engineer talks to you or the producer: references, challenging areas, target framerate. We choose the engine (not "we only work on Unity" but "for your 2D multiplayer game, Mirror on Unity offers a low entry threshold"). We compile a GDD, estimate the asset pool, set up Git LFS, CI/CD (GameCI or Jenkins). We don't take on a project without this stage — it's insurance against rewrites. This approach cuts time to market by 2x compared to typical development without planning.

Sprints with Builds (average 4–8 months)

Two-week iterations. Every 14 days — a playable build. You see progress and adjust course before a wrong decision becomes buried under three layers of dependencies. Typical team for a mid-size project: game designer, 2–3 developers (C#/Unity or C++/Unreal), 3D artist, technical artist, animator, QA. On smaller projects, roles merge.

Polish and Optimization (2 to 6 weeks)

Optimization is not a final polish but a continuous process. From the first builds, we already monitor the profiler: Unity Profiler, Memory Profiler, Unreal Insights. Here's what we do for mobile projects:

• LOD Group mandatory for 3D objects beyond 10 meters
• Static/Dynamic Batching + GPU Instancing – reduce draw calls to 150 on mobile
• Texture atlasing – combine textures, reduce material changes
• Addressables instead of Resources.Load – control memory (peak consumption reduced 3x)
• Occlusion Culling – don't render invisible objects

For Unreal: Nanite covers part of LOD, but dynamic objects require manual work. Level Streaming for worlds. Material complexity — number of instructions in the shader directly impacts GPU time.

Release and Support

Builds for iOS, Android, PC, consoles. Certification, analytics integration, crash reporting setup (Firebase, Sentry). After release — patches, content updates. We stay in touch for at least a month, fixing critical bugs. Average budget for a mid-size game – from $20k–100k depending on complexity.

How to choose an engine for your game?

Client-Side Prediction is not a luxury but a necessity for any multiplayer with reactive gameplay. Without it, players see half-second delays and quit the game.

Multiplayer: why it's an architectural decision, not a feature

Multiplayer cannot be "added later." If you start with single-player and try to add networking after six months — it's almost certainly a rewrite. The principal choice: authoritative server or peer-to-peer. For any competitive game, the answer is authoritative server. The client should not be trusted.

We work with Photon (PUN2 / Fusion) and Mirror. Photon Fusion provides a State Authority model with client-side prediction, which greatly simplifies responsive input development (Photon Fusion Documentation). Mirror is open source, deployed on your own servers, offering more control and lower operational costs as player count grows.

Four technical issues that break projects:

• Client-Side Prediction – the player sees instant reaction while confirmation is in transit
• Reconciliation – smooth state correction without teleportation
• Lag compensation – for shooters: the server rewinds time to fairly calculate hits
• Physics synchronization – deterministic physics requires identical operation order on all clients

What we guarantee

• 10+ years on the market, over 50 completed projects
• Every project comes with a technical document and working prototype, not "code on the fly"
• All source code and documentation are transferred to the client
• We don't abandon the project after release — at least one month of support
• Time savings of up to 40% thanks to ready-made pipelines and correct stack choice at the start

Typical mistakes at the start — check yourself:

• started development without GDD and technical plan
• chose an engine "because it's trendy" rather than for the task
• didn't set up CI/CD from the first sprint
• trying to add multiplayer after writing a single-player GameLoop
• not profiling from the first playable build
• using Resources.Load instead of Addressables / Asset Bundles
• storing assets in Git without LFS

Technology stack

How to start

If you have an idea — write to us, we'll evaluate your project in one hour. No complex commercial proposals, just a technical breakdown: what can be done, realistic budget, risks. If the project has already started but stalled — we do a code and asset audit and provide an action plan. If you need to strengthen a specific area (art, network code, optimization) — we work in an outstaffing format.

Order a consultation — get a realistic estimate and work plan. Contact us — we'll do a quick analysis of your idea.