Can someone who has hard time getting the hang of mechanics, strategy and tactics in a game, be a game designer?
I found myself playing a game of checkers, and constantly losing. My opponent, who happened to be my girlfriend, was always telling me I was missing all the right moves, instead dooming my pieces to death and leading her to a great amount of joy in mocking me because I was getting my ass kicked.
The thing is, this happens to me on video-games too, some more than others, and more on some specific genres. It also happens on different levels of intensity, in some games I find it hard to come with strategies to overcome difficult game mechanics, sometimes I can master those mechanics to my own advantage perfectly. But in the end, the good/bad experiences ratio is pretty low. So, why does this happen? Am I too lazy on some games, or am I just not cut for them?
There can be a huge number of reasons for this to happen, and in my case I think its obviously the laziness and inadaptation on some games or genres, what can be an obvious way to act in a game for someone might not be that obvious to another person. And something that was said to me that I also believe is true, is separating the addiction from fun. When I get to a point that to master a game or be really good at it becomes more practice and obligation than fun, I’ll probably put that game to the side and move to another one.
But now you are probably asking, what does that have to do with game design? Keep reading.
So, game designers must have a deep analytical thought and usually see things that “normal” people don’t see when analysing a game or developing one. They need to set possible strategies for the player to use, or design the game so the player can come up with their own strategies, make decisions that influence gameplay and/or the course of the plot, set difficulty levels so the game can be fun and challenging for dedicated players but also easily enjoyable for the more casual ones, or mix things up (of course this kind of decisions will deeply depend on the game direction, on whether the game is to be intentionally hard, or if its just a casual game or a bit of both).
Designing a game is a fundamental and meticulous step in producing a game, where all key aspects of gameplay, plot, characters, environment, etc. are predetermined. It takes a lot of knowledge, experience and dedication to design a game, especially a good one, and that troubles me in some ways. Why you ask? Lets go back to the title of this article.
Being that a game designer needs to have a knack for detail, can someone who hardly gets the hang of the main strategy on a game be one? Should a game designer easily understand how any, or at least most, of the games he plays work and quickly develop strategies and tactics to overcome the challenges of said games? Definitely yes! But I also believe you can be a game designer and not be a perfect analytical thinker. Let’s see how can that be.
Probably most of the actual game designers today have played thousands of games since they first touched a computer or game console. This adds to the experience point, where they have played so many games that somethings like knowledge of basic mechanics for different genres, functional user interface, creativity in storytelling, and probably a little bit of the psychology behind the games, is obtained.
Other part of game design comes from life itself. Day-by-day experiences enhance the overall knowledge of… things, so to speak. During most of our lives we make mistakes, learn from them or not, make more mistakes, learn again, be successful on something, learn with that too. We are constantly learning from our experiences, and with that we can get various ideas on how those experiences affect us. That is one of the greatest tools of a game designer, know how to integrate an experience or experiences in his game, that will affect the player in someway. And life experience is the first step to improve that tool.
Another one is creativity. Some of us are born with a natural gift for creation or are stimulated since the early days with things that boost our creativity and some only get the creative itch when they are older. The design process of a game also needs, and definitely a lot, of creativity mixed with all the other more technical and functional aspects of the design. Creativity is what will make those details unique and appellative, that will generate the best user experience in the end. So creativity is a big plus.
Now, those are things you can acquire naturally through the years of experiences from your life activities and interactions, and being able to get the hang of games easily can be one of them. And though I believe those will definitely get you in a good way to be a game designer, we’ll definitely need more technical knowledge on more subjects. Programming, 3D modeling, animation, sound design, graphics design, logic, storytelling, psychology, math and physics, are some of the areas that game designers should know a thing or two, or even be specialized in one of them at least, because from the single person indie producer to the team based mega company, you will either be developing most of your games, or working with a team of specialists for each of these areas.
What I want to say with this is that, from the basic, naturally acquired knowledge for making games, it is most likely that you will need knowledge on a set of more specific subjects, being it acquired in school, professionally or in your spare time, to successfully build your top games.
So, not being able to understand quickly the mechanics to overcome a challenge in a game or the game itself shouldn’t be a problem when dealing with designing a game. As I said it can be something that is acquired naturally, and that is definitely a plus in your skillset, but that skill can also be trained and acquired, because in the end, it is just another tool on your tool belt for the game designing job. And if you really think you need to improve that skill, start playing those games and carefully analyse them while playing, after all game designers end up doing that too.
Take it as an RPG, maybe you will miss a few details on the first run, but in the end you level up and the next time you analyse your game you will spot more details and understand that strategy you were missing the first time.
Most of the advice I read about people asking how to become game designers is: “start making games!”. And that couldn’t be more true.
Since you love and have been playing games most of your lives, the chances are you’re already able to build a game from start to finish. Of course it won’t be the next Metal Gear of Final Fantasy, but will make you know that you can do it and can go further in the game designer journey.
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