What is a game designer? A game designer is someone who conceptualises game plots and storylines, levels and environments, character interactions, and other creative aspects. It’s their job to work with other specialists - like developers, artists, and others - to communicate ideas and then project manage those ideas through to game production. Depending on the situation, game designers can specialise in a particular game element, and can work among a team of others for a commercial or independent game development company. They can even work on their own, conceiving, creating, programming, and publishing their own titles. The evolution of game design The term “game designer” is used quite generically these days. In fact, most commercial game development companies are made of large teams with many individuals contributing to the game’s success. There are programmers, producers, level designers, modellers, animators, technical artists, testers, marketing and finance specialists, and more. Level design, for instance, is the concept of brainstorming what a player will encounter when playing a game. Thus, level designers need to consider a number of different elements to ensure they’re making an engaging game for players to experience. Game difficulty is one such key consideration, as level designers don’t want to make games that are too easy, or too hard for that matter—they want to make games that are “just right,” or, said simply, fun! So, their games should be challenging enough to encourage repeat gameplay and evoke the feeling of “I did it!” when players find success. This balance in difficulty will vary by game and type of game. For instance, multi-level games can progress in difficulty with each level, with the first level being easy, the next more challenging, and so on. Or, all levels can be of the same moderate difficulty level throughout the entire campaign. Conceptualising a video game in its entirety As the above shows, there is a whole lot more that goes into game design than just characters and plots. Those who are interested in successfully designing a game need to think through these many different aspects, but also need to remain focused as each decision can branch off to smaller sub-decisions that need to be sorted out before work can commence. For instance, one of the first major decisions a game designer will make is what type of game they want to create. From action games to sports games, puzzles, simulations, and more, there are a number of different types of video games from which to choose. Game design and development courses, and online learning for kids and teens from the world’s #1 tech camp! Download brochure