Confessions of a Game Dev Girl

When I’m at the Komikasi Studio, I always have lunch with the production people. And we’d talk about anything under the sun, from Transformers to comic books to the pizza guy next door trying to flirt with one of our girls. During one of these lunches, one of my game designers told us about how his dad couldn’t fathom how he could possibly get paid good money making games all day. It was amusing and we joked about it. But I knew deep down, it hurt my designer that his dad couldn’t understand —and, therefore, be proud of— what he did for a living. At the other end of the spectrum, when I encounter people who love playing games but have never had an experience working in the game industry, many of them see being a game designer as the coolest job in the world. “Imagine," they’d tell me, “All you do is come up with game ideas for the artists and programmers to make!" Then, I’d have to burst their bubble and explain to them how the job of a game designer didn’t end with the conceptualization of an idea. There are a lot of misconceptions going around about game design, both as a “job-that’s-not-really-a-job" and as the “coolest job in the world." So I thought we'd talk about some of those myths and try to set things straight. Here are five of them. Myth #1: Anyone who can come up with an idea can be a game designer. Here's the thing about aspiring game designers: everybody thinks they have the best idea in the world, and many of them think that alone can qualify them as a game designer. But if you check out game companies like Pop Cap (Plants vs Zombies) and Rovio Mobile (Angry Birds), many times, the idea doesn't even come from the game designer. Coming up with an idea isn't actually the main job of the game designer. It's fleshing the idea out. Ideas can come from anyone. We don't discredit anyone from pitching their idea just because they're not the game designer. But once the idea is found and approved, we expect the game designer to work out the details. The game designers define the rules of the game. They make the levels, create the characters, and write the story. Yes, including the dialogue. Bigger studios have design teams composed of game designers, level designers, and scenario writers. But others can go as few as just one designer per project. Myth #2: Game designers are expert artists. Because of the word “design," most people think game design is an arts job. But it’s not. Game design is actually a documents job. If the output of a game artist is the game art, and the output of the game programmer is the program, then the output of the game designer is the game design document. The game design document, or GDD, is a very thorough description of how the game works. You remember your thesis document? It pretty much resembles that. So, I don't need to draw to be game designer? Well, yes, you do. But before you react and feel all dejected because you can't draw, let me ask you this: Can you draw a box? How about a circle? Yeah? Then you can draw for game design. Mostly you'll be drawing diagrams, level maps, and user interface mock-ups. We'll leave the character art design to the concept artist. Myth #3: Game designers don't need to know programming. Okay, you don't really need to be a programmer to be a game designer. But you need to be analytically competent like a programmer to be one. Another responsibility of a game designer is to design the puzzles in each level. Now, I encounter a lot of aspiring game designers who tell me, “and then in my game, on level 3, you have to solve a puzzle before you can fight the boss." And when I ask them what the puzzle was, they'd go, “Basta! There's a puzzle." Puzzles don't just make themselves, people. Game designers make them. And when I say “puzzle," that includes the setup of the level: where ledges should appear, how long a stretch of wall should be and other details like that. Haven't you ever wondered how a haystack just conveniently happens to be down below when you let Altair fall off a rooftop when playing Assassin's Creed? Somebody had to put that there. Myth #4: Game designers come up with the ideas, everybody else follows. If there's one thing a game designer is an expert at, it's communication. And when I say communication, I don't mean you speak and they listen. Part of communication is listening to others. And if Plants vs Zombies game designer George Fan didn't listen to their musician, you'd be paying double what you normally pay for a sunflower, and end up with a lawn that's predominantly sun-loving plants that can't defend themselves, much less your brain. Myth #5: Game designers play games all day. Shigeru Miyamoto, best known for his creation of Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, liked exploring caves. Will Wright, the creator of Sims, was into cross-country racing (the illegal kind, mind you). And Lara Croft's creator, Toby Gard, hugged trees. These guys don't sit around the television and play games all day. True, a designer needs to play games to keep updated on the current trends in gaming (and also to check out the competition), but as a person whose job includes coming up with game ideas, you're not going to find your brilliant idea just by playing games that have already been created. The best game designers are the ones who go out and do things, because that's how you get ideas. You'll find these designers in Boracay. You'll find them food tripping in Tagaytay, and surfing in Siargao. You'll find them taking candle-making classes on Saturdays, and belly-dancing lessons on Sundays. You'll find them knitting some days, and doing magic on others. Heck, you'll even find them fighting to save the coral reefs a week after they finish learning to scuba dive. You'll find game designers doing all sorts of stuff. If your idea of a game designer is some lonely obese person with zero people skills, whose closest thing to a friend is his PSP that he had fondly named Chun-Li; perish the thought. Game designers don't just make Lara Croft. They are Lara Croft. The coolest job in the world In conclusion, being a game designer is, indeed, one of the coolest jobs in the world. It gives you an excuse to play games, visit new places and try out new things. It gives you a generous helping of mental challenges, which hones your analytical and logical skills. It gives you the opportunity to plan interactions and, therefore, gives you a better understanding of what is enjoyable to people. Since you need to be in constant communication with the people in your team, it gives you insight and lets you make new friends. And it allows you to be part of a team that creates interactions that players the world over would enjoy. And yes, dear parents, it is a legitimate and well-paying job. — TJD, GMA News Ria Lu is the CEO of Komikasi, a casual game development company. She graduated Computer Science from De La Salle University, and studied Computer Graphics for Games at the Tokyo Technical College in Tokyo, Japan. She also teaches game design at the College of Saint Benilde and at De La Salle University.