Through the stars to the thorns, or How the dream of working as a game designer turns into harsh working days
Hi, this is me again - Maria Namestnikova, game designer of Skyforge project in the Allods Team. Today I decided to colorfully describe what game designers are doing in large studios in the workplace.
On the Internet you can find many articles on how to become a game designer. Who do they write for? For the players, whose dream from the very tender age was and remains the fantastic world of gamedev, where you can make your wildest fantasies a reality. This is not one of these articles. This article is a little about something else. It is about what actually happens with a desperate dreamer when he becomes a full demiurge of the gaming universe.
Immediately, I note that we are not talking about small studios, where everyone is a jack of all trades, and certainly not about individual developers, who carefully cultivate their own game. It's about working in a big project.
')
Letters
Some of my friends, having learned what I do, ask: “What, do you play computer games at work?” Probably, someone really does imagine the work of a game designer: sit yourself, play something exciting and sometimes give profound sayings with a very intelligent look. In fact, of course, this is not the case.
Thinking and producing something profound is part of our work, but we must be able to do it not only verbally, but also in writing, and, moreover, harmoniously and logically. Any thinking player has a “bunch of ideas”; not everyone can turn this “heap” into a design, that is, into a detailed and well-developed document. This is hard work. The designer should not just invent one of the many systems of the game, he should know exactly how it will interact with the other elements, and all this is correctly described in dizdok. Possession of the language in which the documentation is conducted in the studio is a very important skill for the designer, because it depends on the wording whether the idea of ​​the author will be interpreted correctly. Inaccuracies in the design lead to a misunderstanding of the idea by colleagues who are engaged in the implementation, and in the end - to delay the work and even rework the already created elements.
Numbers
Besides the fact that the designer must be able to write well, he must also reasonably be considered. The game is very much expressed by numerical values. You can not just take and say "this spell will cause a lot of damage, and this - a little less." All these “more” and “less” should be expressed in numbers, or rather, in formulas, because everyone understands that the great damage from the spell at the initial stage of the game is not at all the same as the great damage from the spell on the highland.
The field for the application of mathematical skills is wide: equipment, abilities of characters and mobs, progression, rewards. Everything that can be expressed in numbers is not taken from the ceiling, but is carefully calculated before it reaches the players.
Nevertheless, the ability to read and think logically well, creating clear and well-working formulas, is not enough. There is also a probability theory - the best friend and the worst enemy of the game designer. It is this one that allows you to create an element of surprise that is so pleasant for players: the heroes have the opportunity to knock out rare gear from an ordinary monster or, let's take an example more simply, a chance to inflict critical damage.
All these chances, probabilities, opportunities and impossibilities add up to furious tables, over which designers sit at night, painstakingly calculating each damage value when different probabilistic factors coincide.
A responsibility
Responsibility for the features made and for their integration into the game in our team, as well as in a number of other game studios, lies not with the managers, but with the specialists themselves. We call it a driver, and the drivers are usually designers.
The driver is the manager of its own features. He supports her more than other elements of the game, coordinates colleagues working on the feature. The driver is most interested in the fact that the tasks assigned to him were performed well and on time. In addition, he himself does a lot of work on the plot entrusted to him.
The success of a game element depends on the success of the driver, whether it will be convenient and interesting. By the way, this also affects the career of the driver itself: assessment and recognition of colleagues, management opinion, professional level and, of course, salary.
Players
It is always important to remember: everything that a game designer does, he does for a player.
To understand his needs, the designer himself must play. It is important not to get stuck in any one game. Ten years in WoW is not a guarantee of understanding what players need, it is only the probability of understanding the needs of WoW players.
Moreover, getting stuck in any one genre is not a good idea either. Of course, creating an MMO, first of all, you need to have an idea about the already existing games of the same genre, but this does not mean that you need to ignore the rest of the gaming industry. In singleplayer, you can also draw some interesting ideas, see new mechanics, get experience. Moreover, in our studio, many people play not only video games, but also games. This allows you to broaden your horizons and not become stiff in the framework dictated by several popular projects.
At the same time, it is possible to play during working hours only in cases that are really important for current affairs, for example, if you are looking for references for the design under development.
So, in order to be a good game designer, you need to work not only 8 hours 5 days a week, but also during after-hours, studying the novelties of the gaming industry or discovering old games that everyone is talking about, and you managed to miss.
Colleagues
In game design, there are always several approaches to solving the same problem that were previously used in other games. The designer is free to create a completely new solution or choose one of the existing ones, having finalized it for the needs of the project. In any case, the created design should be conveyed to all interested people in the team, who may include both those who will work on its implementation and those who create related features or dependent on your design. It is important to remember that different approaches continue to exist for nothing: each of them has strengths and weaknesses, and each approach has its supporters and opponents. You need to be prepared for the fact that you are not just putting your colleagues in front of the fact: "Here is my cool design, love it." Get ready for a dialogue, during which you explain why you made this or that decision, why your changes improve the run-in solution and not spoil it, or why none of the existing approaches fit into the project, while your innovative solution fully answers all his requirements. Ultimately, it is the ability to conduct a dialogue is the most important skill in the game designer.
The process of communicating design to colleagues inevitably leads to changes in it, because remembering to listen to criticism and proposals is as important as being able to uphold your own vision: your colleagues, after all, have been working in the industry for a long time, playing a lot, after all, no less experienced than you. It may well be that a colleague noticed something that you did not take into account, or maybe he remembered an interesting decision from some indie game that you haven’t reached. Maybe he had previously solved a similar problem in another project and ran into some kind of pitfalls, which it is impossible even to assume - should I at least listen, mmm?
In addition, other teams in the elements under their control have certain limitations, which you, when you write a design, can not guess. If your idea requires a complete redesign of the entire game interface, then you will be explained that it is easier to rewrite the design than the interface. If you want to bring down a meteorite on the game world, first ask the client’s team and the artists if they are ready for such an extreme step.
Conclusion
The work of a game designer, and of any specialist involved in the creation of games, is hard work. Here you will get both overtime work, and painstaking design drafting, hellish tables full of numbers, and the strictest critics — your own colleagues and players.
But there is one “but” that turns all the horrors of game devs into a non-stop drive and fan: we work for the sake of one goal, for which everyone is sick with all their hearts. We argue with colleagues not out of malignancy (although, of course, there is little), but because we sincerely believe: it will benefit our game. We rewrite and recalculate our designs, not because we are scribes - it’s just the best that should get into the game. We stay up late not at the whim of the boss, we simply cannot allow the ideas that overwhelm us after the next meeting to dissolve by the morning - it is quite possible that one of them is destined to become a brilliant design.
Creating a game is an incredible experience, akin to the experience of an architect designing a new building, or an artist painting a picture. We are involved in the birth of something completely new and unusual. The process itself is delaying the head, and the thoughts constantly return you to the game (including after hours). The result of all these efforts is an amazing world, having plunged into that, you understand with a sinking heart that you gave him a piece of yourself. You have a reason to be proud - of yourself, your team, your game.
Our remaining articles on various aspects of game development can be read on our Skyforge website and in our Vkontakte community .
On the Internet you can find many articles on how to become a game designer. Who do they write for? For the players, whose dream from the very tender age was and remains the fantastic world of gamedev, where you can make your wildest fantasies a reality. This is not one of these articles. This article is a little about something else. It is about what actually happens with a desperate dreamer when he becomes a full demiurge of the gaming universe.
Immediately, I note that we are not talking about small studios, where everyone is a jack of all trades, and certainly not about individual developers, who carefully cultivate their own game. It's about working in a big project.
')
Letters
Some of my friends, having learned what I do, ask: “What, do you play computer games at work?” Probably, someone really does imagine the work of a game designer: sit yourself, play something exciting and sometimes give profound sayings with a very intelligent look. In fact, of course, this is not the case.
Thinking and producing something profound is part of our work, but we must be able to do it not only verbally, but also in writing, and, moreover, harmoniously and logically. Any thinking player has a “bunch of ideas”; not everyone can turn this “heap” into a design, that is, into a detailed and well-developed document. This is hard work. The designer should not just invent one of the many systems of the game, he should know exactly how it will interact with the other elements, and all this is correctly described in dizdok. Possession of the language in which the documentation is conducted in the studio is a very important skill for the designer, because it depends on the wording whether the idea of ​​the author will be interpreted correctly. Inaccuracies in the design lead to a misunderstanding of the idea by colleagues who are engaged in the implementation, and in the end - to delay the work and even rework the already created elements.
Numbers
Besides the fact that the designer must be able to write well, he must also reasonably be considered. The game is very much expressed by numerical values. You can not just take and say "this spell will cause a lot of damage, and this - a little less." All these “more” and “less” should be expressed in numbers, or rather, in formulas, because everyone understands that the great damage from the spell at the initial stage of the game is not at all the same as the great damage from the spell on the highland.
The field for the application of mathematical skills is wide: equipment, abilities of characters and mobs, progression, rewards. Everything that can be expressed in numbers is not taken from the ceiling, but is carefully calculated before it reaches the players.
Nevertheless, the ability to read and think logically well, creating clear and well-working formulas, is not enough. There is also a probability theory - the best friend and the worst enemy of the game designer. It is this one that allows you to create an element of surprise that is so pleasant for players: the heroes have the opportunity to knock out rare gear from an ordinary monster or, let's take an example more simply, a chance to inflict critical damage.
All these chances, probabilities, opportunities and impossibilities add up to furious tables, over which designers sit at night, painstakingly calculating each damage value when different probabilistic factors coincide.
A responsibility
Responsibility for the features made and for their integration into the game in our team, as well as in a number of other game studios, lies not with the managers, but with the specialists themselves. We call it a driver, and the drivers are usually designers.
The driver is the manager of its own features. He supports her more than other elements of the game, coordinates colleagues working on the feature. The driver is most interested in the fact that the tasks assigned to him were performed well and on time. In addition, he himself does a lot of work on the plot entrusted to him.
The success of a game element depends on the success of the driver, whether it will be convenient and interesting. By the way, this also affects the career of the driver itself: assessment and recognition of colleagues, management opinion, professional level and, of course, salary.
Players
It is always important to remember: everything that a game designer does, he does for a player.
To understand his needs, the designer himself must play. It is important not to get stuck in any one game. Ten years in WoW is not a guarantee of understanding what players need, it is only the probability of understanding the needs of WoW players.
Moreover, getting stuck in any one genre is not a good idea either. Of course, creating an MMO, first of all, you need to have an idea about the already existing games of the same genre, but this does not mean that you need to ignore the rest of the gaming industry. In singleplayer, you can also draw some interesting ideas, see new mechanics, get experience. Moreover, in our studio, many people play not only video games, but also games. This allows you to broaden your horizons and not become stiff in the framework dictated by several popular projects.
At the same time, it is possible to play during working hours only in cases that are really important for current affairs, for example, if you are looking for references for the design under development.
So, in order to be a good game designer, you need to work not only 8 hours 5 days a week, but also during after-hours, studying the novelties of the gaming industry or discovering old games that everyone is talking about, and you managed to miss.
Colleagues
In game design, there are always several approaches to solving the same problem that were previously used in other games. The designer is free to create a completely new solution or choose one of the existing ones, having finalized it for the needs of the project. In any case, the created design should be conveyed to all interested people in the team, who may include both those who will work on its implementation and those who create related features or dependent on your design. It is important to remember that different approaches continue to exist for nothing: each of them has strengths and weaknesses, and each approach has its supporters and opponents. You need to be prepared for the fact that you are not just putting your colleagues in front of the fact: "Here is my cool design, love it." Get ready for a dialogue, during which you explain why you made this or that decision, why your changes improve the run-in solution and not spoil it, or why none of the existing approaches fit into the project, while your innovative solution fully answers all his requirements. Ultimately, it is the ability to conduct a dialogue is the most important skill in the game designer.
The process of communicating design to colleagues inevitably leads to changes in it, because remembering to listen to criticism and proposals is as important as being able to uphold your own vision: your colleagues, after all, have been working in the industry for a long time, playing a lot, after all, no less experienced than you. It may well be that a colleague noticed something that you did not take into account, or maybe he remembered an interesting decision from some indie game that you haven’t reached. Maybe he had previously solved a similar problem in another project and ran into some kind of pitfalls, which it is impossible even to assume - should I at least listen, mmm?
In addition, other teams in the elements under their control have certain limitations, which you, when you write a design, can not guess. If your idea requires a complete redesign of the entire game interface, then you will be explained that it is easier to rewrite the design than the interface. If you want to bring down a meteorite on the game world, first ask the client’s team and the artists if they are ready for such an extreme step.
Conclusion
The work of a game designer, and of any specialist involved in the creation of games, is hard work. Here you will get both overtime work, and painstaking design drafting, hellish tables full of numbers, and the strictest critics — your own colleagues and players.
But there is one “but” that turns all the horrors of game devs into a non-stop drive and fan: we work for the sake of one goal, for which everyone is sick with all their hearts. We argue with colleagues not out of malignancy (although, of course, there is little), but because we sincerely believe: it will benefit our game. We rewrite and recalculate our designs, not because we are scribes - it’s just the best that should get into the game. We stay up late not at the whim of the boss, we simply cannot allow the ideas that overwhelm us after the next meeting to dissolve by the morning - it is quite possible that one of them is destined to become a brilliant design.
Creating a game is an incredible experience, akin to the experience of an architect designing a new building, or an artist painting a picture. We are involved in the birth of something completely new and unusual. The process itself is delaying the head, and the thoughts constantly return you to the game (including after hours). The result of all these efforts is an amazing world, having plunged into that, you understand with a sinking heart that you gave him a piece of yourself. You have a reason to be proud - of yourself, your team, your game.
Our remaining articles on various aspects of game development can be read on our Skyforge website and in our Vkontakte community .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/211312/
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