Design 101: What Designers do.

At this point, I've been a designer in games for over 10 years.

What does that actually mean? What do I actually do day to day? These days, I seem to talk a lot, bouncing from meetings to meetings, nodding my head in half acknowledgement of points being made, or scribbling notes for later meetings where I have to relay information to someone else, or having to explain myself in 5 different ways, often with analogies, oddly always about food. Occasionally, it means I open up an editor and toy around with values, nodes, geometry to get something done so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time, and I'm helping move the project forward.

I do like being a Game designer, I often consider that I've been blessed to have somehow stumble into this career. While I can imagined myself pursuing some of my previous attempts at livelihood, I don't any of them would have given me the sense of purpose and satisfaction these last 10 years have afforded me in my career.

I've learnt a lot, I've grown into the role. I've come across the myths of being a game designer and decided they weren't entirely true to me and how I approach my profession and my life. so thus I think, at an existential level, just what is it that I do as a designer in the games industry.

So I'm going to break it down into a few things, and write about that as much as I can.

Designers do things, we actually do a variety of things in our day to day in order to a game out the door, and I'll try to list down all the lessons I've learnt from doing in the last 10+ years of doing this, because first and foremost;

Designers communicate.

At the heart of design is communication.

• Crafting an interactive experience.

• Evoking emotions in players.

• Stimulating cognitive states with interactivity, systems, patterns and challenges.

Ultimately communicating an idea to an audience, one that is resonant, satisfying and meaningful.

That's the end goal, that's what we hope to do. That whatever design we do, whatever numbers we tweak, pixels we move across an editor, or scripts we tangle logic with, we're creating, shepherding and desperately trying to ensure that the player is engaging with it with some level of investment. That they care, and that they see what we're trying to do. That they play with what we've done and come away and think to themselves, "I've had a good time."

Of course, in order to do that, I'm communicating that idea internally first. To my colleagues to ensure the idea is worthwhile. To the programmers so they know what I'm trying to build. To the artist so they can help visualize it. To myself, just so I know exactly what I'm trying to do day to day, and just how, oh god how, am I supposed to be doing it?

So I work on my craft.

This might be a misaligned word, because when I say craft, I generally mean the knowledge and process of design. The whys and hows, the nuts and bolts of the exact work we're doing moment to moment. The rational aspect of design where we're using sciences like visual art theory, structures of engineering, cognitive psychology, heuristic pattern forming to get at all the wibbly wobbly experience of emotions that we actually want.

I'm a big believer that design is a process, something I'll probably talk more about in a later post. That process is about how best to apply problem solving strategies and the knowledge to get to the design goals. It the roadmap of how to apply craft and knowledge to design, and not just wandering the desert hoping to find and refine the "fun". It's about the learning and application of actual skills, and not just ideas.

Hard skills, the ones most designers don't always talk about.

Craft is working the problem, it's making rational informed decisions at each stage to move forward and get something, and not feel like we're wasting time.

At some point, I'd probably list down the skills and knowledge different types of design can make use of to really get better at what they're doing. Because so much of what we're doing doesn't exist in a vacuum.

It's been a long conversation with context.

A communication with everyone that has come before me and anyone that is coming after.

To talk about every game that has influenced us, frustrated us, annoyed us. To debate every idea that raised before, and dismissed, and raised again, and then dismissed again. To try every method that has been tried before, and to refine ones that haven't. To contribute to the great kaleidoscope of games that we're supposedly passionate about.

Context is a reminder that I don't design in a vacuum. I'm not just doing it for myself and I'm not doing it alone. Even on solo projects, there exists a designer and a player, and in that, I must remember that whoever that player is, they don't always have the same information I do, and that I must situate what I want them to do by understanding what it is they can and cannot do.

In bringing that lens wider, it's also to say that I'm designing based on the games that I've played, that have inspired me and given me the twinkling of an idea that I can do this. I'm designing in response to those games, wanting to re-create the magic they showed me, and in some hope, improve upon them.

Or to games that I find flawed with a kernel of a concept. Hey that's cool, but why didn't they do this? Or how did they do that? Or why have they chosen to do this? What are they trying to achieve with their design, what am I trying to do with mine? Are they connected, in conflict, sympathetic, or just completely irrelevant to each other.

So I'm part of a larger conversation about games and their design.

Game design is a hugely collaborative process, it brings together not just the people who are working on the same project, or the developers and the players we hope are enjoying what we're doing. It brings together all the developers who have worked on something similar, who have tried, succeeded, failed, and are still trying. It brings together those who see what we're doing and imagine that they too, could someday do this.

Design games, create an experience, communicate ideas, contribute to this world we're living in, and hope you have a good time when I manage to do it right.

Currently Playing: God of War (2018)

Second go-around reminds me why this is one of my favourite games ever. I wasn't a total fan of the original series in its hardcore commitment to 90s maximalist brutality, but this updates reckons with that in a thematic way. I like the upgrade to crunchy RPG combat and metroid-esque hub world exploration, but I especially love the story, performance and theme. "Who I was is not who you will be, we must be better." What a perfect encapsulation of the theme, and journey of the game. What a statement to make as father to his son. What a joy it is to play a game that can reckon with itself, and provide thus provide that insight.

#GameDevelopment #GameDesign