From Euroset to game design or 5 beginner's mistakes

Hello! My name is Nikita, I do game design. Periodically they ask me how I came to life such as how to start sawing games. The other day, my invaluable experience turned out to be a week without a year, and therefore I decided to share some impressions of the industry as a whole and a number of things that have torn the template for me personally. In short, tell your story.


^{- Proper self-positioning in a team is the key to success.}

This graphomania can be curious both to people who are timidly interested in the topic (we are generally inquisitive people), and to the master of game devil - just for lulz.

A year ago, after studying for a bachelor of business informatics, I ran into a favorite incident of graduates: experience needs work, experience needs work. I must say, my achievements in the development of games at that time were limited to reflections on the topic: “but it would be great ...”, which was not very exciting for potential employers in the face of gaming studios.
')

^{- There was, however, another concept desk based on a “monopoly” with an expanded economy and a complete DnD. So, he excited even less employers.}

Having talked with them all summer, having completed a dozen or so idiotic test tasks and having received an equivalent number of “wake-up calls”, I decided to spit and make my own game - with preference and courtesans, as usual. And he made the first, in my opinion, mistake. I started reading. The fact is that Todd Howard, Gabe Newell or Sid Meier have not yet written their memoirs. And among the abundance of English-language books and articles, not all were actually practically useful. Of course, there were also useful books like Richard Bartle and The art of game design, but the book doesn’t give any practical experience. As I later heard from colleagues: instead of reading, you need to sit down and do it . Anything: fashion, maps, concepts, art. Something that you can touch. If in your resume besides the standard “I love games, I already want to do them already this year. Vasya, 23 years old ”there will be a link to an amateur mod for the same TES with a hundred or two downloads - this will put you in an absolute minority among all applicants.

So, I suffered from this nonsense until the autumn, and then I happened to get on the open day at my alma mater - the Higher School of Business Informatics. The name of the new program “ Management of online gaming projects ” pleasantly stirred the soul and brought vague hopes. I was pleased with such theses as: “game designer is a career dead end in the industry”, “the bar for entering the market has become almost unattainable for startups” and “you will never make the game of your dreams”, which was uttered with a charming smile and aroused stormy enthusiasm listeners. :) But enthusiasm is enthusiastic, and education costs money. And I decided to earn them. So I got to a wonderful institution "Euroset." “Well, considering the range on offer, it's almost close to IT,” I comforted myself. However, work in retail has given me a number of not very useless skills, such as arrogance, reinforced calm and the ability to get out of any idiotic situation in which you put your boss, colleagues or clients.


^{- Euroset - the service is just awesome!}

I had to rush through the cabin with two million rubles in my pocket: to collect the collection, at the same time dodging the slaps of the furious client. Sometimes, he ran around Maroseyka for a thief who grabbed an armful of phones. It happened and sleep in the back, and celebrate the New Year there. In general, I received about a dozen points of endurance and charisma, scored loot and set off to the warm embrace of Sony PlayStation technical support.

Meanwhile, the study was in full swing: we were told how to count the in-game economy and financial performance of the project , how to divide the players by psycho and predict their behavior, how to manage the team and operate the running project. And I thought, “Hey. I can do it all. ” I got summer work from the mezzanine (I don’t know why, I redid it all the same), I connected a friend, and together we buried the ax of the war we broke the piggy bank of a startup. This was my second mistake . Yes, wage labor is very convenient for people who are not able to do anything engaged in design and design. But he is fraught with too many pitfalls that break legs of inexperienced organizers. Given the availability of WYSIWYG development tools, now I would rather try to do something on my own, without relying on disinterested artists .

The fun began already at the stage of searching for the artist. For a simple, three-page, mobile game, a developer was sought who could simultaneously support the client and server parts. Perhaps the requirements were somewhat inadequate, but they were dictated by both financial considerations and the issue of comfort for work with no experience. The number of very strange offers we received — ignoring the conditions of performance, theses set forth in the TK and the amount of remuneration — grew exponentially. Many applicants, apparently, did not even read the TK. It was a shame, in vain did I pour water for 50 pages?


^{- This proposal put us in a dead end: seeing the total cost, we did not know whether to laugh homerically or cry.}

But despite all our attempts to start a project at the very start, it began to move shakily. An artist was found who was able to climb into my head and download a picture from there, which could not but rejoice. Meanwhile, studies were nearing completion. It was necessary to write a thesis project, which I, without any doubt , transformed from our dizdok game. In principle, all students of the course did this, and our teachers - honored professionals in the leading companies in the industry - provided us with comprehensive support and advice. And my third mistake was not enough understanding of the value of these consultations and of the knowledge that I could get if the work allowed me to devote more time to my studies. Information that is far from academic theorists, obtained first-hand, repeatedly tested in practice and updated by experts, should be eagerly absorbed and disposed of in the most efficient way. Many of the things that I had to learn through my own bumps were presented at seminars in a ready-to-use form, while I was solving the problems of PSN users at work.

Nevertheless, the diploma was written and successfully defended, and my project became the very experience that potential employers were so eager to see in me. I was lucky to get an interview at Mail.Ru Group and, having successfully completed the test task of writing a small dizdoc for a popular mobile game, take a position as a game designer.


^{- Beauty!}

Of course, I did not avoid the fourth error. The long-awaited work, graduation, perspectives - all this made my head go, and I started to grab at everything: poking around in the game's configs at night, reading the finished documentation, learning the scripting language (a very convenient tool), and working on my project and work at the same time. As a result, after three months I began to fall asleep at the computer and did not appear at home for several days. And I realized that I was doing something wrong. I had to adjust my life activity a bit, based on the thesis “do as little as possible, reasonably and sufficiently” . However, workaholism is contagious and hard to cure: right now I am writing this article instead of playing Black Desert.

At the moment, I am already working on the second project in the Mail.Ru Group, and our mobile game is preparing for a presentation on DroidCon at the end of the month. Perhaps my last and main mistake lies in the illusion that one can study, systematize and avoid repeating all these errors in one’s experience. After all, there is something eternal, romantic in walking on a rake, is not it?