What is Game Design?

            So what is it? Is it like Fashion Design in which you make some spectacular clothing? Or maybe it’s more like Interior Design where you pick out some nice wallpaper and arrange furniture? This is where many people get the term “game design” incorrect. It isn’t so much about the artwork. That’s Game Art or Concept Art. Game Design is the writing of the rules and planning out how the entire game works. This may also include a story if the game calls for one. Anyone who writes rules and documents for a game is known as a Game Designer. That is the main reason many of us are here at SAU pursuing the Game Animation and Simulation program: to make some games!

            Sadly, as of this post there isn’t an emphasis on the design aspect. It’s all about the artwork and programming. Both fields are still important to making a game a reality and can still net you some jobs, but are not necessarily what we may all be looking for. There is speculation that a minor in game design will be added to the program and there is a class about making games called Game Design Management, but what do you do until then? Personally, I’ve been doing research. Research and a bunch of writing of articles to show what I found so far. As a three year student here, let me offer some advice on learning game design.

            First off, you don’t have to make video games. Game design applies to non-digital games as well. If you have an idea for a board or card game, write it down. Write any idea down, really. That idea, whether it be good or bad, might just help you out in the future. It may become a game or it may inspire another idea for some other medium. For example, I had an idea for a multiplayer version of Five Nights at Freddy’s that was inspired by watching some people play a gmod of the game. Someone built a replica of FNAF in Garry’s Mod and it looked fun. I planned a video game document around it, but then it turned into a board game idea. It’s still a work in progress, but ideas take time to realize. They may be built quickly or they might take years. If you keep at it, your work will pay off. 

            Or maybe you don’t want to go for board games. That’s fine. Video games are a lot bigger and more difficult to make. Plus there’s this pressure of either making your own game by yourself like Jonathan Blow did with Braid or finding a little niche to carve out for yourself. I feel like I HAVE to make a game doing all of the artwork, all of the programming, all of the sound and music, and especially the writing just to prove that I’m adequate at game design. It does not have to be that taxing, though. As a designer, you only need to know how to write and design a game. Having basic knowledge of creating artwork and computer programming is a plus, but not essential. In my case, I kind of have to know how to make artwork so I have things to show off on a portfolio. 

            Which brings up an important point: portfolios. Artists have portfolios of their greatest works, but what do game designers have? Pretty much the same thing, but with pitch documents. If you have a good game design document, post it on your site and let potential employers see it. I wouldn’t post the whole thing as someone might try and copy it. As long as the idea sounds interesting enough to develop, go with it. Having worked on a game in the past is an even better option. If you helped someone make their game, just state your role and the game you worked on. An example might be someone who was an Item Designer for Mass Effect. That person had to calculate values for each weapon and how much damage they did. Maybe you designed a level for someone in which case you would be a Level Designer. Super Mario Maker is a good game for learning how level design works.

            Now what about the story? There’s at least one person who establishes a story and possibly the entire world (or the universe!) of that game. The Lead Designer will usually be in charge of establishing the setting, but sometimes a team of writers will do that for him. Maybe you went into this program hoping to write for games without having to design them. That’s great! Creating scripts for games can help improve your writing skills. By scripts I don’t mean code. I’m referring to film script. Many segments of a game need a film script to describe the events that go on. Think of it as planning for a cutscene: you set up the camera shots, direct where the action is going, input dialogue, and stuff like that. You could also do storyboarding for games which lets you organize how the story goes in picture form.

            But what if you don’t want to do ANY of that, but still want to work in the games industry? The only thing I could think of is being a games critic. They don’t make games, they don’t do any artwork, no programming, and no story telling. They look at a game, see its flaws and mistakes, and points them out. They are not payed to insult a game, but rather to constructively criticize it so developers know what went wrong and how to improve upon it better in a future title. I’ve written my fair share of reviews and since pursuing this program, I can spot glitches and faulty textures much more easily. Most critics judge solely based on gameplay and replayability rather than art assets.

            Hopefully this advice helped clear up what game design is and isn’t. It’s all about the way the game plays, but not about what the game looks like. Designers do not have to do any coding (unless they are pretty good at it), no sound direction, nor music making. They make games for the sake of making games.

Portfolios

          This is something that is mentioned a lot by professors, but there hasn’t been anyone telling us exactly HOW to make a portfolio. It’s always “You need to build up your portfolio so you can be hired by companies looking for talented individuals. True, a portfolio website (as well as a physical portfolio of your work) is vital to getting into any industry involving creations such as writing, artwork, and even games. 

          A physical portfolio is easy enough to make. Simply make a collection of all of your absolute best work and keep it in a place where you won’t lose it. However, potential employers can’t see your physical work unless you post pictures of it in an easy to access place. That place being the web, specifically your website. That’s where the online portfolio comes in.

          Online portfolios are a little harder to make, but are a lot more convenient for everybody. If you specialize in making digital work, you can simply upload your content to your website and whoever happens to be browsing around can see it. Trouble is, web design is a required skill in creating one’s own website and not everyone can do that. I personally am a novice at web design (and scripting in general). Fortunately, that may not be necessary. There are several websites that let you build your own portfolio website out of templates and drag and drop interfaces. Look here for a detailed guide on how to set one up. One of the things it mentions is that your domain and hosting are free. If you want people to take you seriously, you will need to go ahead and opt to pay for both. A paid domain name will not have “weebly” in the URL and paid hosting is a lot more reliable than free hosting. You’ll likely pay an annual fee, but it’s a small price to pay for entering the professional world.

          As for what kind of portfolio website it is, that’s up to you. What are you good at? Really think on what you’re best skill is. It could be writing or drawing, but those are broad categories. Maybe if you’re a writer, you are more of a film script writer or if you do drawings, maybe you classify yourself as an animator or concept artist. The more specific your skillset, the easier it is for employers to classify you as a type of worker. That way, they know exactly what they are looking for.

          Once you know what you’re good at, what do you want to do? If you’re like me and you find out you have a knack for writing, then you can see yourself in a variety of positions. Personally, storyboarding and story writing are more my thing. Naturally, to show this I would need to make storyboards and stories to add to the portfolio. If you really want to be an animator, make some animations. They don’t have to be incredibly long, but they have to be good enough to show off. If you feel it’s your best, then stick it up there.

          What about voice actors or music makers? They have portfolio sites, too. They put up samples of what they sound like and possibly a scene from a cartoon or movie they provided their voice for. More music, providing songs you have made is a good idea. The best advice I can give for this is to look around for people with portfolio websites and take some notes. Know what you want to do, then look for people who do the same thing and study their sites. They usually have a home page, contact info with their face (if necessary), and a section just for showing off work. As for additional help:

Here is some advice on what to do and NOT do for a portfolio.

A few examples of portfolios:

David Shaver here worked on Titanfall.

Jay Baker is a storyboard artist with some neat stuff.

David Mattock has some animations as well as the programs he used to make them.

Pearl Hewitt does voice acting and has several video examples of her speaking for ads.

Hopefully this helps you all make a portfolio properly and gets your name out there.

Graphics

            Video games have come a long way from being square dots on a screen. Back then the player just had to use their imagination to make their own world a little more appealing. So long as the 8-bit sprites vaguely resembled a person, we could grow attached to that character. Nowadays, we don’t have to do that so much. We’ve got programs that can make hyper realistic worlds that look so stunning and bring a tear to my eye… and yet, we crave more.

            I think somewhere during the transition from 2d games to 3d games our desire for more realism in games has skyrocketed. The demand for state of the art graphics in our games has reached a point so high that only the most talented people get to do the honors of meeting those needs. Despite their skill, we just aren’t satisfied. Why do we want the graphics to be so good that they blur the lines of reality and fantasy to the point of reaching uncanny valley? I’m beginning to think our demand is too great. These developers are only human. They can only do so much and we’re working them way too hard.

            Allow me to use The Order: 1886 as an example. It recently launched on the PS4 this year and it looks amazing. I haven’t seen graphics this aesthetically appealing since Bioshock Infinite. The textures, the animation, the particle effects, the lighting, you name it. However, I looked at a review for the game that heavily criticized the gameplay. What happened? This game had a cool concept from the time it was shown at E3 last year and seemed like it would be a stellar game with a brand new IP. Instead, it failed in the gameplay department, the story wasn’t too intriguing, and enemy AI was laughable. I’ve never played this game, so maybe it’s just one guy’s opinion. But he was sorely disappointed. If you want to hear the review yourself, here’s a link to AngryJoe’s Review of The Order: 1886.

            This isn’t the first time a pretty game did badly in the gameplay (let alone everything else). Sonic Boom has this beautiful aesthetic, but the game itself is really buggy and there’s no telling what kind of game it wants to be. It mixes genres so much that Earthworm Jim is asking Sonic to politely calm down. It’s universally panned as a bad game and there’s no telling why graphics were seen as the biggest priority.

            Now for a game that looks a bit muddy, but plays well: Xenoblade Chronicles. One of the biggest flaws of the game is that it looks kind of bad. For a Wii game, that was about as good as the graphics could get. However, the graphics didn’t bother me that much. The story was compelling and the gameplay was phenomenal! I still had loads of fun with it. Graphics are important to a game and can affect how the world looks and operates, but there’s no need to go overboard and try to market with looks alone. In fact, any game trailer you see that shows you cinematic cutscenes, FMV sequences, but no gameplay, that just looks suspicious.

            Granted, this is only an issue with AAA developers. Most indie companies don’t feel pressured to have the best graphics, so they can do almost anything they want. They can’t get away with graphics that make it impossible to see, but they can avoid looking hyper realistic. As for big companies such as Ubisoft, they have to meet the demand that is ultimate graphical quality. I feel sorry that these companies have to put up with this kind of work. The artists must be highly skilled and I’m grateful for the effort they put in to their games. Sadly, I can’t lower the demand for pristine graphics. I can only hope that making games like The Order: 1886 with that same quality of look becomes easier on the developers.