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