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Author: Bill Roper
Date: May 3, 2005
Source: Flagship Forums (dead link)

Desire to Design

Bill Roper's Inside Insights

First and foremost, you really have to have a love of digging into the mechanics of a game and analyzing what makes it tick. Design is a tricky thing since, by definition, you are the main person responsible for making the game “fun”. This is much more than naming cool items and monsters or laying out a level that looks nice. You have to get some grounding in what makes people tick, as well. The best games are ones that you start playing and suddenly, five hours has gone by because you were just blissfully lost in the fun of it all, and that doesn’t happen by accident. It takes an understanding of how to dole out rewards, and what motivates people to take that next step, for example.

That being said, there are a lot of things you can do to further your chances of being a game designer. The single most important thing you can do is to make games. Whether they are paper and pencil RPGs, board games, Java Script puzzles, or levels for something like Counterstrike or Warcraft III. Practice makes perfect, and you can work out a lot of new ideas for game mechanics through prototyping, even if you don’t have the programming skills to do it yourself. We commonly use things like pieces from tabletop games, miniatures, a Go board, or even just paper and pencil to sketch out and test ideas before they get coded up and put into an engine.

The other route is to start off in the quality assurance department of a game developer or publisher and start learning the inner workings of the industry. After you get a feel for the people at that company, the inner politics and their development processes, you can start finding a good avenue with established designers or producers to get your ideas heard. This is the way a LOT of people climb the ladder in design in our industry, and a QA job can lead to a level design position, associate producing, producing, designing and on up.

If you want to be a game designer, then start making games – any games – right now and see if it is something that you have an aptitude for. You can also attend conventions such as the D.I.C.E. summit in Las Vegas or the Computer Game Developers conference in San Jose (to name a couple) and shop your name around. The best interview/pitch I ever got was someone who not only had their resume for me, but also a game they had made. That demonstration of their abilities to make a compelling and fun experience was what sold me.

Also, you can look into some of the degrees and colleges that have launched in the past few years that specialize in game design, art and programming and see what they are looking for in students. A great listing of these can be found at:

http://www.gamasutra.com/education/

But most importantly, keep playing games and having fun, because in the end, that’s what its really all about.