Games on Google Play Instant are a great way to remove friction for your
players and increase your reach. This guide expands upon the
UX best practices
for apps on
Google Play Instant
and
presents best practices specific to games.
Identify your target user experience
When designing your gaming experience using Google Play Instant,
consider how you'd like players to interact with it.
You can make your entire game available without installation, which is a great
way for players to enjoy your game with the least amount of friction. These types
of full instant experience games are called Instant play and are
eligible for
featuring on the homepage of the
Google Play Games app
.
If you
aren't able to make the entire game available, you can also create one of the
types of trial experiences described in this section.
Be deliberate when building out your instant experience. In doing so, you'll
increase your reach by providing value to your gamers.
Preregistration
You can deploy a Google Play Instant experience as part of a
preregistration campaign for an upcoming release. You can use this experience to
help generate signups, perform A/B testing of features, and share teaser content
to prospective players.
Players launch this experience from the Play Store details page, which is also
where they preregister for the game.
Introductory gameplay
This type of Google Play Instant experience is built around the first few levels
of the game, or the game's tutorial, with minimal changes to the player's
experience. When players install the game from the instant experience, you can
transfer their current progression.
Core gameplay
This type of Google Play Instant experience provides a preview of what players
see
after
they complete the tutorial and introductory levels. This pattern is
particularly effective when combined with the best practice of saving players'
progress after they install the full game.
New gameplay types or levels
Games can experience player abandonment as they mature. These players may have
either finished the current game, exhausted all the current features, or dropped
off for a variety of other reasons. Google Play Instant is a great way
to re-engage these players by showing them what more they can experience with
your game. These new experiences might include new levels or changed game
mechanics.
Minigame
The Google Play Instant experience complements the installed version of
your game. This experience often contains different gameplay elements and might
be more simplistic.
Several types of campaigns?including ad campaigns and cross-promotional ad
campaigns?can launch players directly into the Google Play Instant
experience instead of the static Google Play Store details page.
These experiences include the following:
- Ad campaigns.
- Cross-promotional ad campaigns: Advertising one of your games within one
of your other games.
- Re-engagement ad campaigns: Ads that target churned players of your game.
Polish the end-to-end experience
This section provides some suggestions for optimizing the end-to-end experience
for players who interact with your game on Google Play Instant. You
should make sure that your instant experience starts quickly from a variety of
entry points, and if you have built a trial experience, you should encourage players to graduate out of the experience
by installing a full version of your game.
Give players several entry points
Players may find your game using any of the following methods:
Provide at least a few of these methods for bringing players into your game.
The screenshots in Figure 1 show examples of these game discovery methods:
Figure 1.
Several possible ways players might find your game (left to
right, from top: ad campaign, Google Play Games app, Play
Store)
Start the experience quickly
Figure 2.
Animation shown when a game loads on
Google Play Instant
Games on Google Play Instant use an immersive, arcade-like animation as a
loading screen to keep players engaged while the game loads, as shown in Figure
2:
If you must display an additional loading screen in the game, try to show it for
as short a time period as possible.
Keep the back button enabled
Figure 3.
Back button warning dialog (Bubble Witch 3 Saga)
Don't disable the Android back button at the bottom of the screen. Instead, show
a warning when it's pressed to alert players they're about to exit the game,
as shown in Figure 3. It's a good practice to not disrupt established
navigational patterns.
Provide an installation prompt
If you have built a trial experience, you should provide a way for players to
install the full game. Note that this isn't required for
Instant play
games that are featured in the Google Play Games app
.
For trial Google Play Instant experiences, you would typically use an
Install
button. You
can show this button in a variety of locations:
- On screen permanently.
- Between levels.
- As part of the main menu.
The screenshots in Figure 4 present examples of possible
Install
button
locations. The screenshot in Figure 5 demonstrates the in-app installation
experience that occurs after players tap a given
Install
button.
Figure 4.
Several possible ways of inviting players to install a game
(Clash Royale, left; Bubble Witch 3 Saga, right)
Figure 5.
Inline app installation experience (Panda Pop)
Preserve user state after installation
Ensure players' progress and achievements are saved and available after
installation. They should be able to continue playing where they left off when
they decided to install.
Make your game viral
Some of the best players are acquired organically through recommendations from
existing players. Google Play Instant can bridge the installation gap
between one friend recommending a game and another friend trying it out for the
first time.