Game design sounds like one of those jobs you dream of having as a kid. The type of job that makes you think "wouldn't it be so cool if I could design and play video games for a living?!" But the thought usually ends there and you move on with your life, deciding what it is you really want to do. Because of course, you couldn't actually design video games for a living, that's just a fantasy. But video games don't just appear out of thin air. For some, that dream did become a reality; whether or not it was the reality they were expecting however is a different story.
Game design is an interesting, and likely misunderstood career path. Yes, you get to design and play video games for a living. However, it isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Designing video games is a very real and difficult job, involving a lot of hardwork and dedication. You don't just get to think of a cool idea for a game and then it becomes a reality. There are a lot of steps involved, such as:
thinking of a cool game idea that will actually work (which is a lot harder than you might imagine)
designing and thinking through all the systems and mechanics which will make that game possible
implementing those systems and mechanics with some sort of prototype
testing that prototype to make sure the idea works and the game is actually fun
getting outside feedback and QA testing to see if other people also think your game is actually fun
realizing a major flaw(s) with your design
refining the systems that work / redesigning or completely scrapping those that don't
testing the prototype again to see if now your game is fun
fix / redesign / test / repeat
Even from just this short bulleted list of things, you can get a better idea of just what game design actually entails. However, from reading this list you don't get to see all the hard work which goes into each and every one of those steps. And even after going through all of this and coming out with a finished game, it could totally flop leaving all your hard work and time going down the drain (mostly). You see, even if the game you create ends up sucking, you still learned a lot throughout the process that you can bring to the next game. And that's honestly a lot of what game design is about, failing and learning from those mistakes. Most of the mechanics and game ideas you design aren't going to end up making it into a full published game, but that's ok. Through this process you become a better game designer, and eventually you will make a game that is fun and successful. And at the end of the day, that's all we can hope for as designers.
“You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” - Jack London (The Call of the Wild)
So, where am I going with all of this stuff about game design? Well, today I would like to talk a little about myself personally as a game designer and where I hope to go in the future.
Who Am I?
To answer this question, I first am going to give you a very brief backstory of how I got where I am now, in the game design field. It all started in high school. I was your average kid going to your average high school in your average town. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my future or what type of profession I wanted to pursue. But then my life was dramatically changed when one of my very close friends told me about a technical school she wanted to go to. This school offered a program called Digital Arts which taught things such as digital drawing, photography, graphic design, web design, and you guessed it, game design. I thought the program sounded really fun (and a lot cooler than regular high school) so I decided to apply for it as well. Sure enough, I was accepted, and so began my interest in game design as a profession.
Now here I am, a student at Champlain College in my junior year, learning all sorts of new things I never thought I would and creating video games every semester. But that doesn't really describe who I am as a designer, that is, what my own personal style and strengths are.
My personal favorite genre of video games to play are open-world RPGs, however I have never actually worked on one before, and I'm not even sure if that's the type of game I would be interested in creating at all. Up until now I've mostly had experience designing short, one-off games which can be played within one session. These types of games are much easier to design than the huge open-world games I enjoy playing, so I don't currently know how well I would be able to design one. The small one-off games I've created typically revolve around only one or a couple basic gameplay mechanics which comprise the entire game, making them much easier and faster to create. My biggest task is just coming up with the ideas for these short, fun mechanics and then making them actually work within the context of a digital game.
I know I have only just started my game design career, considering I haven't even graduated from college yet, however I have already grown so much as a designer from when I first started back in high school. For example, I'm much better at coming up with game ideas than I was at first. Before, I had a lot of trouble just thinking up ideas for what would be a cool and fun game, and I wasn't very good at deciding how the mechanics for said game would work or would even be fun. But now, thanks to my college courses and practice over time, I can come up with game ideas much faster now, and my ability to design the mechanics for said game ideas is much more efficient.
What Are My Strengths?
As of writing this, I believe I am a talented and very versatile game designer. One of the things I'm most proud of about myself as a designer is my ability to be not only a designer, but also an artist (to some extent) and a programmer. Compared to other designers at my school, I personally believe that my creative and technical abilities are far above others.
As far as art goes, I am very good specifically at 3D modeling (which is why I will also have an entire section of my website dedicated to it). I have been interested in 3D modeling for almost as long as I have been interested in design, basically from the moment I first created a model in high school. What I lack in 2D drawing skills I more than make up for in 3D. As of writing this post, I am even taking a 3D Modeling 2 course (the third modeling course my school offers), which is far more advanced than a designer would usually go into the art field.
And as far as programming, I have not gone out of my way to take any extra programming courses, however I am very comfortable with it and even genuinely enjoy it. I am definitely capable of programming a short game entirely on my own, as I already have numerous times on solo game projects. Additionally, I am also good at teaching myself new programming tricks and methods which I didn't know before. For example, if I am trying to program a specific mechanic but am not sure exactly how to do it, I am able to not only find the answer online, but teach myself how it actually works so that I will remember it for the future and further build my programming knowledge. And, like I already mentioned, I find it oddly fun and satisfying to program a game on my own.
"Soft Skills"
Not only am I strong in those above mentioned technical areas, but I also have developed a number of "soft skills" during my time here at college so far. Soft skills being more mental skills such as communication or problem solving. As far as these skills go, I believe some of my personal strongest areas are communication, organization, time management, and critique.
For me, communication is definitely the area in which I have had the biggest improvement since my high school days. Even now, I am a very quiet person, not really going out of my way to start casual conversations with others except for with my closest friends. That's not to say that I'm not friendly however; if someone else were to come up to me and start talking to me I would happily oblige and speak with them, I just don't tend to start said conversations on my own, making it seem to others that I am very shy or awkward around people. However, when it comes to a team or work related setting, I have grown a lot as a person in my ability to effectively communicate with others. In high school I was very shy and awkward around people, not ever wanting to talk to someone if they weren't my close friend. But now, after being in college for a few years and needing to talk to more people much more frequently, I have gotten a lot better about communicating with people and have personally gotten over most of my social anxiety which I had when I was younger. I can now very effectively communicate with my team members regarding the project or issues we are having, all without having any anxiety or fear about speaking to them.
Organization and time management both go hand in hand, and have not been as big of an improvement as communication, simply because they are both skills which I have always possessed to some extent. I am personally a bit of a perfectionist and neat-freak if you will, so I have always kept things very organized and tidy. This goes for almost anything I do, not just work or projects. For example, I was always that one strange kid that actively kept their room clean and organized, meaning my mother never had to yell at me to clean my room as it seems most parents do.This organization has been really helpful to me during my college career, especially when it comes to managing my time for getting homework done or completing a game project by the due date. I can mostly accurately judge how long I think a specific task is going to take to complete, and then mentally schedule exactly when I am going to complete that task in order to get it done in time. I have also been using a To-Do list app on my phone for many years which I use to organize all of my homework and projects, which makes things very easy for me to keep track of everything. The app allows me to input the name of the task, add a checklist of separate smaller tasks associated with it, the due date of the task, set reminders for that task which will pop up on my phone as a notification at a specific set time, and even create a "My Day" list in which I can select exactly which tasks I want to get done on that particular day and in what order. My organization has also really helped me when it comes to digital files, as I keep everything organized into folders on my laptop which are appropriately labeled so it is very easy for me to find anything I am looking for.
Lastly, as far as critique goes, I actually had a jump start on this soft skill compared to most other students because of the fact that I attended that technical school during high school. In my digital arts program we actively did critique sessions for almost every project, with all of the students in the program reviewing and giving helpful critique for everyone else's work. Our teacher for that program made it very clear just how important proper critique is for professional work, and so I was able to learn how to properly give and receive critique before even starting my college career. As a small added side note, we also did a lot of team work in that digital arts program, and so I also got a head start on how to effectively work on a team. One of the biggest team projects I did at my technical school was redesigning the entire school website, which we did as a class project with about 6 of us composing the team and working together to redesign the entire website, a feat which I believe is very impressive for a high school student.
Into The Future
After all this discussion on where I currently am as a game designer, I want to talk a bit about where I would like to continue going over the course of the rest of my college career and beyond. As far as the rest of my college career goes, I would like to continue improving my ability to come up with interesting and unique game ideas. This is arguably the hardest part of the job, just having an idea that is actually really good and would make a good game. Even if you are really great at creating games and making them a reality, it won't be worth it in the end if the game itself is just bad or isn't fun for the player. So I want to really focus on my ability to brainstorm lots and lots of game ideas and then weed out all the bad ones so I can be left with a handful of really good, unique, interesting, and genuinely fun ideas. This is going to take a lot of time and practice, as it is not really a skill you can just learn. It's the type of thing you need to practice over years of doing it, and by the end of the semester and the rest of my college career I hope to have improved even further.
When it comes to more long term goals, I am not quite sure what it is I want to focus on after graduation. I am still not completely sure where I am going to go or what company I am going to end up working for after graduation, but it is something I expect I will just deal with when I get there. Maybe I will get some kind of job offer from a company that wants to hire me, or maybe I will need to go out searching for a job myself. But whatever happens, I believe I will be able to figure things out and end up with a strong career in the game design field. If I continue learning and practicing my design skills over my next three semesters, I believe I will be more than ready to take on a real-life game design job and excell at what I do.
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