Who is the game designer?

What is needed to start invent your game? You can assume that these are the skills of using engines, such as Unreal Engine or Unity, can be knowledge of programming and script languages ​​or years of experience?

No, just go to the mirror and you will see everything you need – head and hands! With the help of the first, you can come up with any idea and tell other people about it, and with the help of the second to write down your thoughts. It is difficult to keep everything in your head at once, so be sure to write down every little thing that comes to your mind, and after starting to work with this. This will also help you express in the right way to other people about your concepts.

But what about technical skills, you ask? Many games can be created even more without them: card games, board games, text adventures! It is not necessary to start your way with the creation of minecraft, the main thing is to start. But, even creating a game on platforms such as PC or iOS, you do not need to know every smallest detail. To make the right decisions, the main thing is to imagine about each area as a whole. After all, the game designer is the most multifaceted profession in the gaming industry. I have to find out about everything a little about everything.

Someone thinks that the game designer is the one who comes up with a story for the game. No, it’s wrong. We must come up with not only history, although sometimes it, too, but every detail: the rules, tasks, how the game looks like it feels, the pace of gameplay, awards, punishments and everything else with which the player will have to encounter during his adventure.

T.e. The game designer should come up with all this, write down and enjoy the result? Unfortunately, it never works so simple. Our area is the most unpredictable of all possible. No one can imagine how this or that idea will look in the final form. How she will fit into the game? What the player will feel? How the balance will change? There are dozens of things that may not go the way you expected, you will have to change your idea, adapt it to the game, or even adapt the whole game to one single idea!

Of course, the more experienced you become, the easier it is to predict what will turn out in the end. But even those who have for many years of work can also make mistakes and be mistaken, so that, thanks to mistakes, to come up with something even better and interesting. Thus, you will not have to miss. Even when everything, it would seem, will already be ready, you need to balance and collect it together, creating continuous and exciting impressions for the player.

When the product is https://wilberforceinstitute.uk/refer-a-friend-casino-bonus on the market, the work is still not finished, because you need to analyze how your game behaves, maybe something can be corrected and supplemented? Why players leave it? Why do they buy this thing, but do not buy another? You and I will have to answer these questions, and then localize and correct all the problems found.

How can you become a game designer? After all, you only graduated from the university, or maybe still study? The first thing that helps you is an analysis of other games. You need to understand at a subconscious level that it works well and makes your creation better and what can damage.

So, let’s say you played innumerable games and understand how everything works? Then immediately try to create something of your! Before looking for a job, you need to at least try. Before you are boundless open spaces:

-Read books about game design-however, for this you may need knowledge of English, because all good literature on it
– Write the concepts, show your friends, put it on sites, listen to someone else’s opinion
– Think about how to improve existing games, write about it on the forums, communicate with the community
– Create mods for popular games, write stories and implement them. Skyrim will help you here first
– Try to figure out any engine and make the simplest game on it, although this task is not from the lungs and not everyone can do it. Do not despair, someone better succeeds in the theoretical design-this is in the order of things
– Examples of complex engines, but they mainly work in companies: Unity, Unreal Engine, Cry Engine
– Examples of simpler engines for loners: RPG Maker, Game Maker Studio
– Try to create your text adventure, for example, on the quest5 or adrift engine

– Create board and card games, play them with friends
– Create the balance systems of non -existent games in Excel, maybe the balance is your calling? In any case, these skills are definitely useful!
– Yes, at least go to the same conference of games developers and listen to various speakers, information may be useful for beginners

In addition to developing skills, everything that you can show others will definitely help you when applying for a job. Even cardboard board game. How to find a job? After all, you want to make games? Set up with anyone! The tester, the community manager, the younger game designer, the main thing is to get to the industry and develop.

What do you think, younger game designers are doing? As a rule, this is routine work to add information to configu or databases, error editing, simple levets design and many other not the most exciting work. However, this is a start. And most importantly – start.

What skills can be needed by the game designer when creating a game?
– animation – you must imagine what you expect from the characters how they should move, how your design can use these possibilities
– Audience – you must imagine who will play your game and what they expect from it, the most important thing is to justify these expectations
– Architecture – yes, yes, creating entire cities and worlds, you will have to be inspired by world architecture so that your locations look real and living
– “Brainstorm” – it is difficult to translate this expressions (the brain of the storm), in fact you have to create tens and hundreds of ideas, you need to be able to do it without limiting yourself to the framework

– Business – most games are done for the sake of money and in order to earn this money, you need to represent which game it is worth making, especially in our “free to play” time
-Kinematographic-in many there are special behavior of the camera and cat-scenes, you must imagine how to improve the player’s sensations with the help of these elements
– communicativeness is probably your main tool. You will have to talk to people every day, every hour, every minute. Correctly explaining your thoughts to the whole team is very important
-Scenario-not on all projects there are scriptwriters and, often, the game designer plays this role
– Economics – in many modern games there is a very complex resource economy and you will have to calculate it and create balance systems
– History – often games talk about certain periods in the history of mankind, and knowledge of different eras can help you greatly
– Management – for the team to achieve good results, it always needs good management. Designers can succeed in this area, helping to organize work
– Mathematics – to balance any game, one or another knowledge of mathematics will be required. The better you feel in this area, the easier you will be
– Music, sound – good soundtrack and sound accompaniment can not even make the best game – a masterpiece, creating an atmosphere and immersing a player in the event
– Psychology – you need to make people happy, and for this you need to understand how they think and what they want
-Public performances-yes, not everyone loves to speak to society, but the game designer often has to do this: tell about new ideas, present a concept, explain to engineers how this or that thing works
– Technical documentation – the ability to create accurate instructions for programmers and artists will help you a lot. After all, allowing the slightest misunderstanding, you can get a completely different result

And, of course, the main skill is the ability to listen. You will have to listen to many: your team, audience, game, yourself.
– It is unlikely that you have all the skills listed above. However, your team most likely has everything. The ability to listen to your colleagues and make the right decisions will greatly help you
– The audience is those people who will play your game. If they are unhappy, then you have failed. You should know better than they themselves, what do they want
– Game – only carefully following the process of developing the game, you will understand what has gone wrong, and you can fix it at the right time
-Listen to yourself-often, when you develop the game in a limited time, do not have time to listen to your own inner voice, and when you understand that something is done wrong, it happens too late

So we found out what a good game designer should look like. Someone is easy for someone, someone will have to work hard, but the works are always rewarded, and if you try and develop, then you will succeed. Wait for the continuation!

*My cross-post with Habra

The best comments

The number of people working in Gamdev and writing posts for SG rubbed. Even here there are already several articles on how to become a game designer or how to start working in Gamdev. The tips are all the same, they do not change. However, I would say something else.
Gamdev is not a fairy tale. This is a difficult job. Anyway. Most likely, you, a reader, be shocked somewhere in the studio of the development of game on iPhones and other free-frying nonsense. Why? Because you live in Russia. Rarely an investor gives money for something unusual. In the world of money for unusual, in principle, they rarely give. So forget about creativity. Work is not the highest paid, and besides, complex, there are a lot of processing, they do not always pay for them. I know a person who left Gamdev, who went to work at the plant as an engineer. Easier and without processing, although they pay less.
If you want to do something unusual … take and do. Now there are several dozen possible tools, the article indicates the main. Learn to model, write music, work with the engine;Learn in parallel to balance, develop as a designer, creator and a person, at the same time, work or study. You will be busy all day. The game will not be as good as you planned or will not work at all, there will be a lot of bugs and if you find like -minded people, this will not always lead to good consequences. There will be quarrels, conversations about nothing for 10 hours to a row.
Most likely you will not release the game and go look for work easier. Strong will break through and prove that indie in Russia is. So on the device for work by a gameplay in the studio, the light did not agree. Learn to tell history now, make a game today, work with tools this week.