Technical skills for video game Designers

Jun 28, 2006 15:51

Someone asked me today what technical skills help out in doing design work (or maybe for getting a job as a Designer). ( It's an interesting question, and here's what I came up with in five minutes. )

designer, job, video game industry, game

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fallenangel_dev June 29 2006, 10:18:32 UTC
I would have replied to this in the commmunity you posted the link, but you disabled comments.

It's a very good list, but I would like to add that if you're looking into level design, then a little experience with a 3D package (Maya/3DS Max) may also work in your favour :)

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jodiamonds June 29 2006, 17:31:35 UTC
Good catch. Absolutely true.

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One other thing left_oblique June 29 2006, 17:20:29 UTC
It probably doesn't count as a "technical skill", but I think it's critically important that a designer:
* have an extensive knowledge of games in the genre
* be able to identify precisely what makes a feature of a game good or bad
* be creative enough to come up with improvements to those features and completely new ideas
* be able to express those ideas to the people who will be implementing them

The last is the most important, especially for a lead or feature designer. If guidance from design is vague, weak, or incomplete, you will get a product that is created by programmers and artists and it will suck.

We're blessed in that we have designers who are very good at expressing precisely what they want from the game.

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Re: One other thing jodiamonds June 29 2006, 17:30:46 UTC
Oh, certainly. I was specifically answering about technical skills. The person who asked me is a less technically-inclined designers (and certainly knew about a lot of the important non-technical stuff).

Communication is possibly the most important skill you can have as a designer, both written and verbal (but at least one of them quite well).

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Re: One other thing left_oblique June 29 2006, 17:45:46 UTC
Communication is key. We've got designers who are as good as anyone else on the team at programming, and we've got designers who never went to college, but all of them are good at identifying what they want and expressing it.

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left_oblique June 29 2006, 17:46:52 UTC
You know, I wonder if communication isn't a technical skill? You can take classes on written and verbal communication, and it is something you can practice.

Maybe more people should treat it as such.

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