Today, let's talk about design "subclasses" - that is, what sort of type of skills outside of game design responsibilities do you want to pursue?
A lot of designers have a subclass or two, making the shape of an individual designer sort of unique!
It's another reason design is harder to "grok" what it exactly is - there's so much variance. That's not a bad thing, though!
It speaks to what roles are more or less attractive, and what unique skills you can offer your team.
These should be defined by interest and background, I think. As a new designer, these can be nice to leverage for being more qualified or useful, but you'll still be very focused on getting the designer part right.
This is more a long term thing to think about.
Let's go;
* Production
This subclass is involved in the details of development. Timelines, schedules, resource management, stakeholders , etc.
Designers who want to go into leadership, love the process of getting things done, or have the background for it might find this attractive.
Design leadership often involves these tasks; helping your team (everyone making the thing) and discipline (the other designers) organize this is a way you serve your team and add value.
You have to set folks up for success across the board. It's not about "making calls" as much
In my mind, designers are on the hook for *not screwing their teams*. This is because design has a lot of work earlier in the process of making things that impacts everyone else.
This bears spelling out; design is a big responsibility.
If your planning for the feature is way off, you're either going to have to be OK to cut scope of the feature, or you're asking everyone down the chain to crunch.
This is, at least, 3D artists, animators, VFX, audio, QA, release. This is minimum 6 people -often more.
So if your plan is to "iterate and see what's fun", or underscope a feature from lack of understanding, the impact is massive.
This takes experience, interest, and care for your fellow dev
A lot of studios do *not enforce this* on design, which I find criminally irresponsible.
Soapbox on this: do not do this, nor design leadership, if you don't care about your team's welfare.
It's fine if you're not interested in this stuff, but don't put yourself on the hook for doing it if you want to be much more focused somewhere else!
*Technical
This is your very engineer/designer combo. This subclass has a coding understanding or background, and likely a strong interest in the technical side.
People with CS degrees often do well here, as do indies.
This is good for you if you also love the act of scripting and building things, and "clean code" is satisfying to you. For the service-inclined, you can often help your design and sometimes art teams with tools to make workflow easier.
A lot of opportunities for impact!
Another bonus is Technical Designers are usually in higher demand, and can command higher salaries.
I also recommend that getting an associate-level engineering position is a good start, as the qualification difference between dev role 1 and dev role 0 is about 1000x
Also consider if you would like to be a Gameplay Engineer; this is the other side of the same coin - engineers who are more involved with the design and gameplay elements. This is a great choice if coding day-to-day is cool, but you also want to be involved in the design stuff.
* Creative/narrative
This is a sub-branch of design, but I think it's also fitting here.
This is great if you want to be more involved with the writing and storytelling of a game. If you have another creative background, this is a good fit.
It's not a writing job, though
Creative and narrative design bridges the gap between systems and narrative. Think about something like Mass Effect's dialogue choices, how the choices themselves work and how to scope that - and you're in that space.
It's design, but design *for the narrative*
Skills like storyboarding, wireframing narratives, and things like talent management (for voice over, etc) tend to come into play here more than writing copy or pure storytelling.
It's not "what story are we telling" as much as "how are we telling the story?"
Disclaimer: I'm an absolute disaster at this stuff, and 10 years of esports work hasn't really helped. @kchironis is a master at this and general design, so she's a good source for real knowledge and experience here.
* Level/World
This is understanding how to make spaces intentionally designed - emotionally, mechanically, spatially - a lot goes into great level design.
In a perfect world, it's a consideration of all the elements of gameplay and how it fits into the world or map, too.
Architects, Interior designers, civil engineers and other people with expertise in space design are natural fits in terms of backgrounds.
If you really enjoy about thinking about the flow of the world or level and how it all looks and plays, this is an attractive option.
It's also a very good one for a career path; many AAA studios need legions of level designers, and modding is easily accessible via maps and levels comparatively.
There's a big risk to this path, though, based on how the industry treats it;
This is can be such a specialty you have level designers that know nothing of mechanics, and vice-versa.
Some places will have level designers ONLY touch levels, and not have the chance to learn broader design thinking or techniques. This can be a career damper.
For people who go this path, curiosity and keeping yourself engaged with other elements will save you from this trap. Don't rely on your employer - you'll have to drive here. They're likely more motivated in having you "pump out good levels" than growing your breadth.
Again, I'm a tragic level designer (just due to little, outdated practice) - where I think @Pearl_Hogbash and @SalGarozzo do this right - blending total game experience with level design seamlessly.
Hopefully this provides insight into the "shapes" of designers, and can help you visualize a potential career and some goals.
As a new person, being a great designer is first priority, but a little subclassing will let you shape your role as a designer over the years.
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Let's discuss game design education and post-graduate programs. I have a bit of a dour take, but I hope it can be useful - and maybe we can even find the silver linings.
It's something I've spent potentially too much time thinking about.
While I have not experienced these classes first hand, I have been a hiring manager for about 10 years. I've had the opportunity to review a *lot* of candidates, resumes, and conduct a lot of interviews.
My experience is from an "I want to find good junior designers" POV
I'll start with generalizations, then we'll move onto exceptions, and then potential things you can do if you find yourself in a bad spot with this.
I don't think there are any blistering-hot takes in here - this isn't an uncommon convo - but I want to make sure new folks see it
Let's talk about being "well-played" in design. That is, having a rich background of gameplay experiences.
This is a critical qualification of all Game Designers, in my mind, but there are(as usual!) a lot of misconceptions around what it is, what it means, and why it matters.
First, let's define what it is (to me):
Being well-played is about having not just a lot of experience in playing games, but looking at those games analytically, too.
Now, a lot of people meet this qualification, which leads me to the first misconception.
* Well-played is required, but it is not sufficient.
This misconception comes from a lot of armchair designers, and usually ones who are, uhm, let's say not always generously-minded.
It's important to have a wealth of experience, but it doesn't make you a designer.
Let's do something more upbeat tonight; I want to talk about passion in game design a bit.
I tend to spend a lot of time with more buzzkill-style topics (in a bit of an effort to take the glamor out of design), but passion does matter and play a role!
I've mentioned before that your engagement in a title doesn't equate to skill and ability, and that a healthy distance from that can help you have a clearer head. This is true, but (as most things) it's nuanced.
Just as job functions have different roles, so do types of passion.
When building a design team, I think about these aspects - in how they offer different, important perspectives. While my experience is primarily in "enthusiast" type games, I think it's abstract enough to apply anywhere.
Here are 3 buckets of passion (..?) with "stat-sheets!"
Let's talk about a subject near and dear to my heart; the *emotional skills* of game design.
We talk a lot about psychology, and the nuts and bolts of "engagement" - but we don't often talk about how emotional awareness and skills are critical to being a great designer.
(Also tbh the design process from execution forward is interesting in practice, but I kept writing boring things that didn't feel super useful beyond what we've discussed already.
If there's a huge demand, I'll come back to breaking those down.)
OK, on to it.
I've seen a lot of designers, usually implicitly, think that being the biggest brain or the "most right" are what we really need in design.
You do want to hone your analytical skills, sure, but without the emotional ones, you'll find yourself having a really tough time.
Today’s post is a break from the individual steps, and defining the process I see in design.
1. Set goals 2. Form solutions 3. Execute 4. Evaluate outcome 5. Iterate
We’ve covered steps 1 and 2 in our earlier posts. Let’s talk about the overall process a bit more.
The process is there is similar to a lot of creative efforts, like writing, performance or art.
My goal with these posts is to demystify design. All creative efforts seem like dark magic externally, but design is a learnable, teachable craft all its own.
With so much potential fuzziness and subjectivity involved, even the most hardened professionals need some structure and order to their efforts to keep on track.
I’d say not using a structured process as a designer is irresponsible in a professional setting.
Following up from yesterday’s goal post, let’s discuss the next step - forming a solution.
Problem solving is the root of design craft. While our goals guide us, how we achieve those goals often determines success or failure.
This has a few steps you’ll want to cover;
* Brainstorm possibilities
* Narrow options
* Select one
How you do this is not rigid, but that you do it is critical.
Brainstorming is where you can go sort of big. Your job is to generate as many ideas for the approach as you can.
Be imaginative! This is a great place to be a bit wilder, or more outside-the box thinking. The earlier in a process, the less risk-adverse you should be.