As a game designer, you will talk to a lot of other disciplines to build the features or content you need. You have to be a central point in the production, because you have to talk to the animator and coders. What skills should you pick up as a game designer? Game design involves a lot of collaborating with people across disciplines and roles. It's easy to let passion eat into your spare time. It's not a nine-to-five job, but it's important to value your spare time as well. The worst state to be in is going home in the middle of a problem, so you really want to finish that first. Then you will head home around five, six or seven depending on you're able to solve the problems you have. Throughout the day, you will also have smaller meetings, which are basically just check-ins. The rest of the day is mostly working - programming, writing code, implementing events using a state machine in the game engine or building a level. After that, maybe you'll have a quick chat with your team on whatever feature you're working on. You usually work in sprints, like a one- or two-week sprint, and working towards a goal in the end.Īt 10am, you will have your morning meetings, we talk about the progress and state of. I come to work at eight or nine, and have a quick start to the day: I read my emails, have a cup of coffee, think about my day and yesterday, just to see what worked, what I should work on today, and problems to fix. What's a typical day like for a game designer? I don't want to share it because somebody would steal it." It doesn't really matter because ideas millions, but execution is everything. Many people have said, "Oh, I have the greatest idea of all time. This initial concept - the idea that you had in the beginning - never turns out to be. But the concept of the game probably just the first 0.01% of making the game, and turning that idea into reality as a game designer is a ton of hard work after that. The most important skill is to be analytical.Īnother big misconception is that you're a game designer if you have a game idea. The biggest misconception is that you play games all day, or that playing games is a skill that is really important for being a game designer, and it's not really. What are some misconceptions about being a game designer? Building the game and systems, putting pieces together - that’s what a game designer does. In game design, I guess you call them verbs, actions that you can perform. It can also be building systems for the game.Ĭurrently I’m working on the combat systems for Dustborn, so figuring out how resources are gained while in combat, and how they’re being used or spent as you use your abilities and moves. It’s usually about working on implementing the game - that is, using the tools written by programmers, building out events, dialogue and the content for the game. Game design is such a broad field and it can be many, many things. What does a game designer do? How does it differ from the work of a narrative writer, producer, developer or programmer? Now I’m working on Dustborn at Red Thread Games. an application called Capeesh, intended to teach immigrants the language when they’re in a new country. I’ve worked on gamification and learning applications as well. I also worked on weirder games where you play as a fly, which is called The Plan. I worked on games like Among the Sleep, which is a first-person horror game where you play as a small child. I’ve been working as a producer for a while, and as a game designer and product designer for ten years. I went to school and studied as a games programmer initially, but had other courses around game design, film-making and animation as well. My name is Ole Andreas, and I’ve been working in the games industry for about ten years. To find out more about what this job really entails, and how you can chart the best path towards being a successful game designer, we spoke to Ole Andreas Haley, Senior Game Designer at Dustborn developer Red Thread Games. The other big misconception, of course, is that you’re essentially the ideas guy - the person solely in charge of coming up with exciting game concepts and ensuring that people execute your vision. Like most positions within the games industry, one of the most persistent misconceptions around the job of a game designer is that you’ll be spending the bulk of your time playing games, and that the ability to play games well is a necessary skill. In the first of a series of articles, we ask Red Thread Games’ Ole Andreas Haley about his role - and how you can follow in his footsteps
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