What Game Designers Actually Do

[zhai]

A very short prologue: I've been very lousy about actually posting game-related topics since I first set up philomathgames.com. The site also needs a better skin. Largely, I don't say much about games because I've always felt that the volume that I'm learning still dwarfs what I already "know". But I've realized 1) this will probably always be the

Comments

[coalescent]

Fascinating post, thanks. In some ways, it reminds me of (what I know of) the processes behind commercial drug development -- a similar sort of mix of vision and pragmatism, and a need to be market-aware.

[zhai]

Glad you liked it. :) Thanks for the comment. Yes, I think much of this is going to be the same when it comes to developing and shipping any product. Nothing is ever absolutely perfect, but its success can be largely swayed by being in a good state at the right time for the market.

[haikujaguar]

As with most things, people skills are invaluable.

This was a cool post. :)

[zhai]

Glad you liked it! Hope you've had a good winter so far. :)

[las]

Thank you for posting this -- it's very interesting.

[zhai]

Glad you liked it. :) Hope you guys are doing okay.

[dhw]

People skills are critical. While designers (especially the people on the level design or scripting teams) may work with tools, the primary implements for the game designer are the other members of the team.

On any even medium sized title, tens to hundreds of design decisions will be made each day, by people other than the designer.

If every micro-design question by every artist, engineer, and level designer had to be run by the lead designer, well, no need to worry, you'll never ship anyway.

On larger projects, there are feature or level teams which have ownership of whole chunks of the game design.

The lead designer needs to be able to impart a vision of the game to the whole team, so that everyone is moving in the same direction, and the micro-design decisions are being made in line with that vision.

[zhai]

Thanks, Dave. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and one of the things I left out is cultivating the ability to work with all of those design decisions, reward them, and keep them running in the same direction with the central vision

[gryphart]

Heh, we do almost all hate marketing across the board... thankfully for my field, we usually only have to sell ourselves to a few individuals. Marketing your idea that continuously sounds incredibly challenging.

[zhai]

Ain't that the truth!

Thanks for the comment, and congrats on your astonishingly productive year. :) Though less burnout in 2009 might be a good thing. ;)

[gryphart]

Heh. Let's cross our fingers I can court some higher paying gigs - at 200 for an average piece, I pretty much seem to *have* to knock out a lot of work to keep a reasonable financial buffer. Still, if I can successfully shift the average to even just 300 this year, I can trim off a small chunk of work and a significant chunk of crazy with it.

(Also - I am probably retarded, but I never seemed to have quite processed that you live in Long Beach. Are you ever up in the Valley? We have a super-swanky apartment in Burbank now and really want to entertain in a couple of weeks, so if you want some free food sometime, let me know.)