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In the Beginning, There Is the Designer

Magic words

Would$-$be designers often ask me$,$How do you become a game designer?$$ And the answer is easy: $$Design games. Start now! Don$$t wait! Don$$t even finish this conversation! Just start designing! Go$!$ Now!$$

And some of them do just that. But many have a crisis of confidence and feel stuck in a catch$-22$: If only game designers can design games and you can only become a game designer by designing games, how can anyone ever get started? If this is how you feel, the answer is easy. Just say these magic words:

I am a game designer.

I$$m serious. Say them out loud, right now. Don$$t be shy$$there$$s no one here but us$.$ Did you do it$?$ If so$,$ congratulations. You are now a game designer. You might feel, at this moment, that you aren$$t really a game designer yet, but that you$$re just pretending to be one. And that$$s fine, because as we$$ll explore later, people become what they pretend to be$.$ Just go on pretending, doing the things you think a game designer would do$,$ and before long, to your surprise, you will find you are one. If

your confidence wavers, just repeat the magic words again: I am a game designer. Sometimes, I repeat them like this:

Who are you?

I am a game designer.

No$,$ you$$re not.

I am a game designer.

What kind of a designer?

I am a game designer.

You mean you play games.

I am a game designer.

This game of confidence building may seem silly at first. But it is far from the silliest thing you will do as a designer. And it is terribly important that you get good at building your confidence, for doubts about your abilities will forever plague you. As a novice designer, you will think, $$I$$ve never done this$$I don$$t know what I$$m doing.$$ Once you have a little experience, you will think, $$My skills are so narrow$$this new title is different. Maybe I just got lucky last time.$$ And when you are a seasoned designer, you will think, $$The world is different now. Maybe I$$ve lost my touch.$$

Blow away these useless thoughts. They can$$t help you. When a thing must be attempted, one must never think about possibility or impossibility. If you look at the great creative minds, all so different, you will find they have one thing in common: they lack a fear of ridicule. Some of the greatest innovations have come from people who only succeeded because they were too dumb to know that what they were doing was impossible. Game design is decision making, and decisions must be made with confidence.

Will you fail sometimes? Yes, you will. You will fail again, and again, and again. You will fail many, many more times than you will succeed. But these failures are your only path to success. You will come to love your failures, because each failure brings you a step closer to a truly phenomenal game. There is a saying among jugglers: $$If you aren$$t dropping, you aren$$t learning. And if you aren$$t learning, you aren$$t a juggler.$$ The same is true for game design: If you aren$$t failing, you aren$$t trying hard enough, and you aren$$t really a game designer.

$$What skills dose a game designer need $?$

In short, all of them. Almost anything that you can be good at can become a useful skill for a game designer. Here are some of the big ones, listed alphabetically:

$$ Animation: Modern games are full of characters that need to seem alive. The very word $$animation$$ means $$to give life.$$ Understanding the powers and limits of character animation will let you open the door for clever game design ideas the world has yet to see.

$$ Anthropology: You will be studying your audience in their natural habitat, trying to figure out their heart$$s desire, so that your games might satisfy that desire.

$$ Architecture: You will be designing more than buildings; you$$ll be designing whole cities and worlds. Familiarity with the world of architecture, that is$,$ understanding the relationship between people and spaces, will give you a tremendous leg up in creating game worlds.

$$ Brainstorming: You will need to create new ideas by the dozens, nay, by the hundreds.

$$ Business: The game industry is just that, an industry. Most games are made to make money. The better you understand the business end of things, the better chance you have of making the game of your dreams.

$$ Cinematography: Many games will have movies in them. Almost all modern videogames have a virtual camera. You need to understand the art of cinematography if you want to deliver an emotionally compelling experience.

$$ Communication: You will need to talk with people in every discipline listed here, and even more. You will need to resolve disputes, solve problems of miscommunication, and learn the truth about how your teammates, your client, and your audience really feel about your game.

$$ Creative writing: You will be creating entire fictional worlds and populations to live in them and deciding the events that will happen there.

$$ Economics: Many modern games feature complex economies of