Industry Insider: What is a Game Designer?

Photo: Thunderchild tm

Game designer is one of the most sought after and least understood positions in the games industry.  Is it the guy who comes up with the ideas?  The girl who imagines stuff and just says, “Make it so?”  The person who draws crazy characters and maps and then rolls out the production team?

No, not exactly.

This article will talk about what real designers are in charge of within the games industry, and will give a breakdown of the different stages of the project as well as career.

Who is this guy?

A good game designer on any team is the one who crafts the experience of the player and the vision for the game, but it is not an isolated effort.  Good designers are able to guide and steer their team towards the best design possible, resulting in an incredible product as well as an incredible experience for team members.  Thus, the job is really half design and half team leadership.

The game designer has a vast array of tools, techniques, and technologies available to him to craft an experience for the player. From first-person shooters to puzzle/adventure, epic fantasy MMO’s to procedural space strategy, simulation and side-scroller action games, designers ponder and tweak their worlds to do their will. By pulling together music, mathematics, art, storytelling, character development, and human behavior, designers weave a tight yet complex web of emotion, feeling, and intellect into their games.

What’s interesting about game design is that it is invisible. It isn’t tangible like art or sound where you can point and say, “That’s what I did,” but it is vitally important as it establishes the vision and structure for the whole experience. The design of a game is only made visible through the player’s experience, which is something that must be performed, not simply glanced at.

If the gameplay delivers on the experience that it promises to the player, whatever that may be, then the designer, along with their team, is to be praised.

Designers Throughout the Project

During pre-production, the period of time before the rest of the team begins full-scale work on a title, designers are responsible for coming up with the general design of the game.  They work with other disciplines like engineering and art to learn what is possible and where the team wants to go.  Then they lay out the road map to get them there.

Later on in a project, junior level designers will often be tasked with implementing the game using tools given to them by engineering, while high level designers will focus on making sure all of the pieces are coming together correctly.  This may mean scripting, level development, tuning, and other activities actually involved in putting the game to code.

All in all, designers are a busy bunch.  Early on it’s all whileboards and meetings, while later it turns into code and playing the game.  The work of a designer is never done, and changes a great deal throughout the course of your average AAA title.

Types of Designers

In large game companies, there are several levels of designers, each with specialized tasks.

Junior designers deal with the lower levels of the game’s design and the player experience. Interestingly, despite being the job of a junior developer, this is the most visible portion of design work (this is a trend in game development – the higher the position, the more broad yet invisible the influence).

Junior designers receive their tasks from higher level designers. These tasks are usually made up of several items: feature design, level scripting or implementation, or writing, all described below. They receive strong guidance from the design team, taking a crack at their tasks and then asking for feedback before revising.

In feature design, a junior designer may be tasked with taking ownership over the design of a small portion of the game. This might be a mini-game, a specific action, a certain situation, or a section of the game. If the game is a racing title, they may be given the task of designing the acceleration or braking system. If the game is an RPG, they may be given a mini-boss or collection of enemies to design.

In level implementation, a junior designer may be given a general description of the gist of the level, from either high-level designers or from discussions he was involved in with the whole design time. His job then is to use the tools available to actually implement the level, taking the rules of the game and using engineering tools to implement the level according to the design team’s vision. This could mean setting terrain, placing enemies, or crafting characters.

Mid-Level or Associate Designers bridge the gap between the Lead Designer’s vision for the game and the junior designer’s implementation tasks. They look at the player experience the Lead asks for and then work to create the systems that evoke that experience. Their job is, in a way, translation, from a vague idea to a concrete system.

For example, suppose the game is a life simulation drama. The Lead Designer tells the design team that the game should feel like the player is navigating the complicated relationships of high school. From this mandate, the Associate Designer is tasked with realizing that game experience. She may design a conversation system that the player can use to speak to other characters. Or she may come up with a story system that allows for the player to manage different relationships and create a tale of their character’s own drama.

Once the game’s systems are in place, the Mid-Level Designer’s task is to implement the game using these systems. This means handing out tasks to Junior Designers, assigning them to levels or features.

Lead Designers or Design Directors are on top of the design totem pole. Design Directors are in charge of the overall gameplay experience, as well as other aspects of the game, such as marketing and team management. They serve as liaison between the design team and the rest of the team, and they manage the flow of information and resources back and forth between those two constituents.

Most importantly (and most obviously), the lead designer sets the tone and the overall direction for the game. All of the game’s development, from the art and sound style, to the overall story and message, through to the moment by moment actions and goals the player is pursuing, flow from the initial vision the lead designer presents to the team. If the game is an action title, then the lead designer will make sure that every aspect of the design reflects that. If the game is meant to be an online cooperation game, then she will keep those constraints in mind and order the design team to create within certain restrictions for that genre.

But it’s not enough for a lead designer to understand the gameplay requirements, they must also be acutely aware of the other factors that can affect development of a title. Game demographics, target audience, sales forecasts, marketability, and production concerns all have the potential to affect the design of the game, and are thus also under the umbrella of the lead designer’s responsibilities.

For example, a certain game may have a mandate from upper management to specifically target thirty-to-forty year old women, based on a business opportunity seen by the game company. It is the lead designer’s job to keep this in mind and lead the team in this direction; it is not enough to make a game they think is “fun”. He is responsible for making sure that whatever game comes out at the end, it is a title that will be enjoyable to that specific demographic. This may mean difficult decisions such as cutting features that team members or other demographics especially enjoy, or adding features that the rest of the team disagrees with in order to serve that specific customer.

Crafting an Experience, Aiding the Team

A game designer is, at their core, someone who creates an experience for the player.  No matter where on the ladder they fall in a large game company, the mission is the same.  To do this while driving a ship of other developers is no small task, but both aspects are crucial for a successful career as a game designer.

Comments

One Response to “Industry Insider: What is a Game Designer?”

1. Intentor says:

   January 27, 2010 at 2:55 pm

   Amazing article.

   Your sentence “A game designer is, at their core, someone who creates an experience for the player” really summarizes what a game designer is.