Designing your first game - The Basics

So you're eager to get started on your first game. What will you make? A first-person shooter that takes place in a cyberpunk setting? Or perhaps an epic adventure game about a hero who battles monsters and saves the world? I'm sure you have myriads of ideas in your head but before you begin, below are some initial advices to designing your first game.

First, take a look at your team. What do you have to work with? Are you by yourself? Do you have help from programmers? What about artists? If so, how many of them do you have? The reason for these questions is that they will help you determine what kind of game you're capable of developing. For example, if you have more artists than programmers then you may want to design a small and simple game that uses a lot of artwork. However, if you only have one artist and he or she specializes in pixel art, then maybe you want to develop a 2D game. Either way, know your team and their skills and then design your game accordingly.

Second, keep the game's design simple. Even if you have multiple programmers helping, as a game designer you need to crawl first before you can walk. Design a game where the player only needs to remember a few core actions that you can teach them all in the beginning of the game. The rest of the game can have a myriad of obstacle types for the player to overcome, but what's important is that the player will still only need to remember those same core actions in order to overcome those obstacles.

This applies to the game's assets as well such as objects and enemies. Design a handful of basic and modular assets that you can use, combine and arrange with others to create new challenges and obstacles. Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't introduce new objects or enemies to the player as the game progresses, but the more you're able to use the same assets over and over again, the more time your programmers have to polish the game. Plus, it forces you to be creative by making new things while using the same pieces, sort of like LEGO.

Third, design a game with consistent visual rules. If you have a blue flower pot that can be smashed, ensure then that ALL blue flower pots can be smashed. If there are pots that can't be smashed, make them different by perhaps colouring them red. If you don't have consistent visual rules in the game, it can break immersion as well as the player's flow. Although players can't always see what's right, they can always see what's wrong.

Well, that's about it for this post. I'll go into more advanced game design topics in future posts but this should help you get started in designing your first game. Good luck and see you all next week!

Becoming a Game Designer

I thought I'd start off with this subject simply because it's still quite fresh in my head as I've only started my career as a game designer less than 2 years ago. First of all, let me talk about what it is to be a game designer.

As a game designer, you must have some knowledge of the other fields such as programming and art. The more you know, the better you'll be. Now, this is not to say that you must have 'extensive' knowledge of them, but knowing the basics will go a long way. The reason behind this is so that you can make smart, efficient and meaningful decisions.

Let's take the design of the character Mario (originally called Mr. Video or Jumpman) from Donkey Kong. Its designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, gave him red and blue clothes so they would contrast with one another and the background, making him easier to see on screen. The overall's straps made his arms visible. His cap was to avoid drawing and animating his hair and his mustache was to avoid drawing his mouth.

Now, if you were an artist at the time, you may not think of designing a character like Mario. But Shigeru designed him with the player, art and available hardware in mind. You see... game designers, unlike the other fields, always see the game as a whole and as such, they make decisions accordingly.

Think of game designers as architects. Architects will design buildings while keeping in mind the following things:

1. What the client wants (the players of the target demographic)
2. The land and surroundings (the genre)
3. Design of the building's exterior and interior (the visual style)
4. Materials (hardware and to a certain extent, the programmers)
5. Functionality (game play)

All of the above count towards the end result and the architect must ensure that every piece of the building harmonizes with each other. This is the same when it comes to developing games as a game designer. A character design may look amazing by itself or a mechanic may be fun to play with, but if they don't harmonize with the main game as a whole, it's best to leave them out.

Now let's talk about what can help you become a game designer. In the past, game designers were actually the lead programmers. But as years went by and games became more complex, a person was needed to focus entirely on game design. You can now find schools that will educate you in becoming a game designer such as DigiPen and QANTM College (which is where I studied). However, I highly recommend you do research first before applying to any school. Ensure that the school can give you what 'you' need and have the resources to give you a head start in entering the industry. You should also read up on other helpful subjects such as mythology, mathematics, psychology and story-telling. Now I'm not saying you should get a degree in these, but again, knowing the basics will go a long way.

But the best thing you can do is to just start creating games. No matter how simple or small the game is, creating games allows you to see what it takes to create them. If you don't have any ideas for a game, clone an existing one and maybe give it a little twist. If you're not a programmer, you can use starting tools like Game Maker. Game Maker has a simple drag'n'drop system to teach you how coding works and to help you visually see and understand the step by step process of programming and how events in the game work. Then when you're comfortable, you can use Game Maker's programming language (appropriately called Game Maker Language) to do real coding. From here, you can move to other advanced programs like Unity 3D. Doing all this will help you learn essential skills like scheduling, designing within limitations, balancing, lateral thinking and problem solving.

Now, I think this post is quite long enough so I'll end it here. Also, I plan to get into some of those aforementioned skills and subjects in future posts so remember to come back. I'll post a couple of links below to get you started. Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next week!

[Links]

Gamasutra
GameCareerGuide (Try doing their Design Challenges)
Extra Credits (I recommend watching all their episodes)

Game Maker
Unity 3D

Player 1 - Ready!

Welcome to "The Beige Designer".

This will be the first of, hopefully, many weekly posts that I'll be writing about game design and the development of video games. However, I'll also throw in some game reviews or miscellaneous posts about the world of video games.

Now, do keep in mind that I'll be writing about things from my own experience or about observations that I've made. So don't think that everything I write will be globally correct and absolute. If you agree about something I wrote, great! That means I actually know what I'm talking about and you should spread the word! If you disagree, well that's fine too. You can post a comment and tell me why. It's always good to see things from a different perspective.

Well, I guess that's about it for this blog's introduction. Before I go, you can visit my website here where you'll find more information about me as well as the games I've developed so far.

See you all next week!