Practical Game Design E-Book

Adam Kramarzewski

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 804

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

If you’re in search of a cutting-edge actionable guide to game design, your quest ends here! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with expert guidance from veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms.
The second edition of this book remains dedicated to its original goal of helping you master the fundamentals of game design in a practical manner with the addition of some of the latest trends in game design and a whole lot of fresh, real-world examples from games of the current generation. This update brings a new chapter on games as a service, explaining the evolving role of the game designer and diving deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever. From conceptualizing a game idea, you’ll gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games, exploring the craft of producing original game mechanics, and eliminating anticipated design risks through testing. You’ll then be introduced to level design, interactive storytelling, user experience and accessibility.
By the end of this game design book, you’ll have learned how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing free-to-play games and games as a service, and significantly improve their quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.

Leseprobe

Practical Game Design

A modern and comprehensive guide to video game design

Adam Kramarzewski

Ennio De Nucci

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Practical Game Design

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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Group Product Manager: Rohit Rajkumar

Publishing Product Manager: Vaideeshwari Murlikrishnan

Content Development Editor: Abhishek Jadhav

Technical Editor: Joseph Aloocaran

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First published: April 2018

Second edition: August 2023

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Packt Publishing Ltd

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ISBN 978-1-80324-515-7

www.packtpub.com

I’d like to extend my gratitude to my loving wife, Shan, for putting up with me throughout this project, and to my brother Chris, my parents, our reviewers, and everyone at Space Ape Games and beyond who helped me out with feedback, fresh ideas, and words of encouragement.

– Adam Kramarzewski

My first thanks to Barbara, who supported me in the long hours of writing and studying for this book. Thanks to my parents for all the lessons, my friends for all the adventures, and all my colleagues throughout my career, especially those at Another Place Productions and Simon M. You have been an endless source of teachings and inspiration. Finally, my gratitude to Fabio Belsanti and Fabio Abbattista, who believed in me and sparked my passion for game design.

– Ennio De Nucci

Contributors

About the authors

Adam Kramarzewski is a game designer who, at the age of 19, dived straight into the pre-smartphone mobile games industry of 2007. He has gathered over 16 years of experience with the likes of Gameloft, Square Enix, Space Ape Games, and Madbox, and has worked on over 30 game projects and many world-class IPs, including Lara Croft, Deus Ex, Boom Beach, and Transformers. Adam is an avid gamer and a fan of cinematography, psychology, and all things science. He has also sat on the jury for game design at the 2017 and 2022 BAFTA Video Game Awards.

Ennio De Nucci is a game designer and developer. His passion for role-playing games and miniature war games brought him into the game industry, where he has worked as a game designer since 2011 and designed both digital video games and physical board games. He worked for a variety of video game developers, such as PM Studios Srl, IGT, Supermassive Games, and Another Place Productions. At the time of this book’s release, he works as a Lead Game Designer for one of the most renowned strategy game developers.

About the reviewers

Suvrangshu Barua is a game developer with 3.5 years of professional experience in game development and is currently working at Kolpoverse Studio, where he utilizes his passion for gaming and his programming expertise to create engaging and enjoyable gaming experiences for players.

Suvrangshu has also worked as a game programmer at Alpha Potato LLC, a renowned game development company. As he progresses in his career, he aspires to be recognized as a game developer who not only creates exceptional games but also provides players with unforgettable experiences.

With his passion, technical expertise, and creative mindset, he aims to contribute to the evolution of the gaming industry and inspire fellow developers to push their boundaries.

Jaydev Dhakan remains grounded and continually seeks new opportunities for growth. He embraces the ever-changing landscape of the gaming industry, staying up to date with emerging trends and technologies. By actively engaging with the gaming community and collaborating with other passionate professionals, he continuously pushes his boundaries and expands his creative horizons.

Zoë O'Shea is a PhD candidate studying at Goldsmiths University, London, and is part of the Intelligent Games/Games Intelligence Center for Doctoral Training (IGGI). Originally from Dublin, Ireland, Zoë has previously studied 3D modeling, game design, and games theory. Her current research is centered around player psychology and behavior. When not working on her thesis, Zoë undertakes a wide selection of freelance work and enjoys playing Final Fantasy XIV Online.

Bill Robinson has been developing games for almost 30 years, and has been doing so professionally for over 10 years. He currently works at Space Ape Games in London and worked for Jagex in Cambridge earlier.

Table of Contents

Preface

1

Introducing the Game Production Process

Game design roles

Specialization and T-shaping

Development teams

Responsibilities of a game designer

Software development models

Waterfall

Agile

Production schedule and milestones

Greenlight gates and vertical slice

A traditional milestone structure

Validation funnel in-game development

The role of a games publisher

Summary

2

Preparing a Game Concept

What is a game concept?

Structure of a game concept document

The hook or elevator pitch

Description

Key feature set

Platform

Audience

Genre

Business model

Knowing your competition

Understanding the ideation process

Coming up with ideas

Twisting familiar mechanics

Creativity through constraints

Finding the fun

Defining fantasy

The mood, or how the game looks and feels

Summary

3

Scoping a Game Project

The evolution of game structure

Common game structures

Linear

Structured nonlinear

Open nonlinear

Endless and sandbox

Notes on structure

Game content

Content burn

Scoping practices

Content lifespan

Game flow

Planning design work

Estimation techniques

Priorities and dependencies

Summary

4

Creating Design Documentation

The purpose of a GDD

Characteristics of a good GDD

It is modular

It starts with goals and requirements

It is the result of a discussion

It is clear, brief, and concise

It is multimedia

It leaves space for creativity and debate

It comes in different formats and sizes

It is online, shareable, and accessible

Tools for writing a GDD

Word processors

Wikis

Presentations

Note organizers

Digital whiteboards

Mind maps

Spreadsheets

Illustration tools

Generative AI tools

Writing techniques

Use of style

Layering details

Start with a high-level design

Motion versus action

Write incrementally by drafting

Prioritize

Use of keywords

Table of contents

Bullet points

Images with captions

Diagrams

Variables

Redundancy

Hyperlinks

Elegance in game design

Keep it short and simple (KISS)

The less-is-more principle

Summary

5

Understanding Game Mechanics

What is a game mechanic?

Examples of game mechanics

Game mechanics interact with each other to develop dynamics

Mechanics and dynamics are part of a feature

Approaching mechanic design

Rules and game mechanics

Mechanics and dynamics produce feedback

Finding the right reference

Deconstructing your references

Additive and subtractive design

Putting it all back together

Summary

6

Designing Systems and Features

Developing an idea into an experience

Innovating with design

Solving gameplay problems with design

Building a game feature starting from the players

Game loops

Game’s model and player’s mental loops

Interactive loops

Designer’s loops

Progression systems

Progression systems provide pace to the game

Progression systems provide variety

Games as systems of conflict

Opponents

Obstacles

Dilemmas

Quality over quantity

More choices, not best choices

Combat systems

How to design a combat system

Combat depth

Teaching game features

How to design a tutorial

Tutorials in free-to-play games

Summary

7

Making Prototypes

What is a prototype?

Why a prototype?

Prototyping techniques

Paper prototyping

Digital prototyping

A step-by-step guide to prototyping

Step 1 – ask the right questions

Step 2 – select the framework and tools

Step 3 – create the rules

Step 4 – implement and create the prototype

Step 5 – the first playtest

Step 6 – iterate

Step 7 – move on

Prototyping exercise

The hands-on game designer

A paper prototype case study

Questioning a combat system

Addressing the problem

From paper to digital

Abstraction versus reality

Moving on

Summary

8

Designing Compelling Stories for Games

Narrative

Do all games have a narrative?

Why are stories good for games?

Traditional narrative models

The three-act story

Monomyth

Designing narratives for video games

Linear narrative

Modular narrative

Environmental storytelling

Summary

9

The Fundamentals of Level Design

What is level design?

The level-design process

The premise

The sketch

Grayboxing

Art implementation

Final polish

Level design and storytelling

Level-design practices

Functional level design and realism

Evolving game features

Pacing from day one

Lock and key

Geometry and gameplay

Effects of lighting

Vision as a mechanic

Level design in multiplayer action games

Summary

10

Creating Characters

Do all games need characters?

The birth of a video game character

Playable characters, NPCs, and enemies

The function of characters

Character statistics, attributes, and abilities

A step-by-step character design

Acquire deep knowledge of the game

Write down the design pillars

Write a high concept

Define and balance the stats

Prototype and iterate

Final implementation

Enemies

Types of villains

Types of enemies

Enemy behaviors and stats

Enemies exist to entertain a player

Diversity

Summary

11

Balancing Your Content and Systems

Gameplay balancing

Gameplay balancing methods and tips

MBT balancing

Layered Modifiers

Game difficulty

Static difficulty settings

Automatic difficulty adjustment

Pacing

Mental and sensory stimulation

How to approach pacing

Summary

12

Building a Great User Interface and User Experience

Understanding UX

Player input

Camera systems

Feedback

Designing UIs

Listing and prioritizing information

UI mockups

UI tips and tricks

Summary

13

Making Your Games Accessible

Increasing accessibility

Reducing cognitive load

Limiting the complexity of interaction

Maintaining visual clarity

Making audio optional

Restricting negative consequences

Building on common knowledge

Teaching game systems

In-game teaching techniques

Teaching outside gameplay

Best practices

Localization

Playtesting

What to playtest?

Playtesting formats

Sourcing candidates

Running playtesting sessions

Summary

14

Mastering Games as a Service

Terms of engagement

Basic stats

Marketing and analytics

Economy and balancing

Live operations

Staffing

Efficient live ops

Managing the content treadmill

Live-game balancing

Tools and setup

Content management system (CMS)

Customer relationship management (CRM)

Dashboards

Test environments

Live ops tools

Asset streaming

Events

Event classification

Event components

Event rewards

Community and customer support

Supporting players

Official Discord servers, Reddit communities, and social media accounts

Gathering feedback

Newsletters

Localized customer support

Live streaming

Introduction to season passes

Designing a season pass

Progression mechanics

Accessing previous passes

Premium rewards and perks

Season pass tips

Summary

15

Understanding Monetization Techniques

Basics of F2P monetization

Vectors of monetization

Time

Difficulty

Playable content

Non-playable content

In-game advertisements

Establishing a game economy

Adjusting the monetization strategy

Balancing player progression

Gacha

Weight-based loot tables

Packaging and opening

Maintaining consistency

Kompu gacha

Box gacha

Bundles and targeting

Adjusting your offering based on individual player spending

Purchase rationalization

Evaluate your audience!

Players have limited budgets

Using season passes for monetization

Tips for creating a high-performing season pass

Why do some games fail to monetize?

Poor goal setting

Content is not desirable

Poor balancing (too easy or too hard)

Monetization works but is inherently low performing

Monetization tips and tricks

Earn an opportunity to spend

Player spending should build up your community, not divide it

Disappointments and regrets cost dearly!

Think of technical performance holistically

Scarcity influences value

Focus on daily retention

Optimize your newsletters and notifications

The network effect can make and break your game

Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes

Maintain tight control over your rewards

Beware of stockpiling resources

Start strong and hook players onto the long-term premise

Preview content to spark a desire

Summary

16

The Final 10%

Putting the pieces together

Feature creep

User experience improvement

Polishing

How to polish

Quality assurance

Game designers and QA

Tips for closing a game project

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

If you are seeking an up-to-date and actionable guide to game design, then you have come to the right place! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with this book, written by two industry veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms.

This second edition retains the original goal of teaching the basics of game design in a practical manner, but it also adds coverage of some of the most recent trends in game design and a whole lot of new practical examples from games of the current generation. A new chapter on games as a service will explain how the role of the game designer is evolving and will go deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever.

Starting with learning how to conceptualize a game idea, you will gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games. You will discover how to produce original game mechanics and test and eliminate anticipated design risks. You will then learn the basics of level design, interactive storytelling, user experience, and accessibility.

Toward the end of this book, you will learn how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing games as a service and free-to-play games, and understand how to significantly improve game quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.

Who this book is for

Whether you are a student eager to design your very first game, or a game designer looking to expand your skill set, this book will help you master the fundamentals of game design across all stages of game development.

By focusing on best practices and taking a pragmatic approach, this book provides insights into the art and craft of game design from two senior game designers, with insider knowledge that even the most seasoned industry veterans can appreciate.

Prior experience in game development is not absolutely necessary. However, a basic knowledge of some popular video games would be helpful.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing the Game Production Process, explores the basic machinations of the games industry, teaching you about various game design roles, the responsibilities of designers, production methods, and development milestones.

Chapter 2, Preparing a Game Concept, teaches you about how to write a game concept and your responsibilities as a game designer. Practical tips and real-life examples will help you create your very own game concept based on an original idea or an existing game.

Chapter 3, Scoping a Game Project, covers the concepts and relationships between a game’s overall scope, its structure, and its content. We’ll explore real-world examples and help you build an understanding of how to better document the size, complexity, and dependencies of your game, as well as help you estimate your tasks.

Chapter 4, Creating Design Documentation, explains everything you need to know about writing game design documentation, from the tools and techniques to numerous pieces of practical advice.

Chapter 5, Understanding Game Mechanics, approaches the definition of game mechanics and will give you an idea of how to create your own game using pieces from existing games. This chapter also introduces the concept of dynamics and features as a set of mechanics that form a bigger part of the game.

Chapter 6, Designing Systems and Features, explores the theory behind game design and the creation of mechanics, features, and systems that are fun to play. You’ll learn how a new mechanic is taught and how the core loop of a game is formed. Finally, you will learn about the roles of conflict, combat systems, game complexity, and depth.

Chapter 7, Making Prototypes, demonstrates how to prototype a game idea or concept. This chapter will cover both paper and digital prototyping, with all the pros and cons of both techniques. You will read about a practical example from a real-life scenario that is easy to replicate as an exercise.

Chapter 8, Designing Compelling Stories for Games, highlights the importance of narrative elements in games and helps you design strong characters, intriguing worlds, and compelling stories.

Chapter 9, The Fundamentals of Level Design, introduces you to processes and techniques used to create highly playable game content. You’ll learn about creating believable spaces, manipulating light and geometry, and making the best of the available game mechanics.

Chapter 10, Creating Characters, explains the different kinds of characters that populate virtual worlds and how to make the best use of them. In this chapter, you will also get a closer look at a practical character-design example for an existing game, from which you’ll be able to get some inspiration to try and do your own character design, a great exercise for any game designer.

Chapter 11, Balancing Your Content and Systems, combines the knowledge from previous chapters and explores the ways in which you can pace, structure, and adjust the rules and content of your games to create experiences that capture and hold the interest of your audience.

Chapter 12, Building a Great User Interface and User Experience, outlines the complexities of input mechanics, camera systems, and effective game feedback. You’ll then gain practical insight into the processes behind UI and UX design, helping you create interfaces and experiences that are informative, empowering, and delightful to interact with.

Chapter 13, Making Your Games Accessible, dives into how to make your games more accessible, that is, easier to use, understand, and relate to. You’ll then learn about usability testing and arm yourself with the expertise required to plan and execute your very own playtesting sessions.

Chapter 14, Mastering Games as a Service, distills the knowledge required to turn your game into a successful service by establishing an update strategy, running events, designing season passes, addressing game balancing, working with analytics, providing customer support, and using the tools required to operate your games sustainably.

Chapter 15, Understanding Monetization Techniques, expands on the knowledge from the previous chapter and dives deep into the techniques and knowledge required to thoughtfully, ethically, and effectively monetize your free-to-play games.

Chapter 16, The Final 10%, takes you through the processes that need to take place before a game is finally released. You will also read about the difficulties and pitfalls of closing and releasing a video game, and how to avoid them.

To get the most out of this book

We’ve done our best to explain any industry-specific terms and practices in order to make this book as accessible as possible.

The contents of this book require no prior experience in game development. However, a basic knowledge of some popular video games (such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Elden Ring, Super Mario 3D World, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Hearthstone, Dota 2, and Starcraft) would be helpful.

Disclaimer

The screenshots used in this book are for illustrative purposes only. We do not recommend you misuse these in any way. For more information, please consult the terms and conditions of the publishers mentioned here:

Electronic Arts (EA): https://www.ea.com/terms-of-serviceNintendo: https://www.nintendo.com/terms-of-useInterplay Productions: https://www.interplay.com/Mobygames: http://www.mobygames.com/info/termsValve Corporation: http://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/Activision: https://www.activision.com/legal/privacy-policyCapcom: http://www.capcom.com/capcom/legal_privacy/privacy.htmlBlizzard: http://tw.blizzard.com/zh-tw/company/about/privacy.htmlFrozenbyte: https://www.frozenbyte.com/privacy-policyMicrosoft Studios: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/copyright/default.aspxBethesda Softwares: https://www.rockstargames.com/privacyTHQNORDIC: https://www.thqnordic.com/

Tips or important notes

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1

Introducing the Game Production Process

Welcome to the games industry! It’s an ever-changing world where competition is fierce, publishing platforms and business models come and go (in just a few years, crowdfunding has appeared, peaked, and seemingly vanished), whole genres of products disappear (only to be revived or reinvented 15 years later), and big publishers, small independent studios, and even streaming services such as Netflix all fight for an ever-limited resource – player attention. As game makers, we often give away more and more (if not all) of our content for free, hoping to monetize users later down the line.

At the time of writing, Valve’s Steam still dominates publishing on PC, while Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo keep fighting for their share of the console pie. Despite Nintendo Switch’s success and the emergence of Steam Deck, handheld consoles are on the back foot, quickly being replaced by phones and tablets.

The mobile industry itself is all but dominated by Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, and while the mobile market keeps on growing, it has become much, much harder for small developers to break through and make a profit.

User acquisition is extremely challenging (read expensive), and a lack of support from the community and platform holders can sink your profitability. Premium (paid-for) mobile games are all but gone, and the most successful products are what we consider freemiumor free-to-play.

In this crowded market, games are becoming more and more expensive to make, market, and operate. What worked in 2010 works no more; the best bet for small groups of indie developers is to find success with Steam Early Access or nab a deal with the Epic Games Store. Still, since the introduction of the (now-defunct) Steam Greenlight, the PC gaming market has been packed with countless new titles.

According to the data exposed by http://steamspy.com/, there were 379 games published on Steam in 2012; by 2021, that number grew to over 10,000. Developers now face a market that’s increasingly hit-driven, and unless you sit on a billion-dollar brand such as Marvel or Call of Duty, playing it safe is no longer an option. If you do not adapt and innovate quickly enough, you’re sure to face commercial failure. As the stakes go higher, teams either balloon out of proportion or grow ever leaner.

Now, this reality check might sound a little grim, and make no mistake, while it’s very difficult to make a great game, it’s even harder to make it successful. But for those who keep on trying, for those who do not hold back and surrender after their 1st, 5th, or even 10th canceled or failed game, this industry can offer a uniquely fulfilling and rewarding career. And across all of the different roles, being a game designer could just be the most fulfilling of them all.

We’ll start this book by delving briefly into the basic machinations of the games industry, exploring game design roles and responsibilities, production methods, and the development process. There’s a lot to cover, and probably much more exciting stuff to follow, so... are you ready? Let’s begin!

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

Game design rolesDevelopment teamsSoftware development modelsProduction schedules and milestonesThe role of a games publisher

Game design roles

Game designers come in all shapes and sizes. We’ve got generalists that work on everything as well as highly specialized craftspeople put in charge of a single area or system. Creative leads, on the other hand, often work on a more conceptual level, maintaining a cohesive vision for a game and shaping it through feedback, with typically little to no hands-on involvement.

There’s no universal distinction, with roles and responsibilities varying between companies and even teams, but game designers can be roughly divided into the following categories:

Generalists: These include junior and senior game designers, as well as lead designers and creative directors. A generalist will often take care of (or provide feedback on) all areas of game design not already covered by someone else on the team.Economy designers/monetization specialists: This is a role very likely to be encountered in the mobile games industry, as nearly all products require someone with expertise in designing and implementing a fitting monetization strategy, as well as balancing the in-game economy (from the pace of player progression to the distribution of loot, and much more).Level designers: This is often a crossover between a designer and a 3D artist. Some level designers only take care of the gameplay side of the level, while others are capable of delivering a finished stage.Mission/content designers: Rather than working on new features and game mechanics, these designers specialize in adding and balancing in-game content, from buildings, vehicles, NPCs, and weapons to quests, puzzles, achievements, and more!Narrative designers: These are tasked with writing, designing, and implementing narrative elements in games. They often work together with level and mission designers (or take their responsibilities) to help craft a compelling experience.Systems designers: This is a catch-all term for all designers that focus on the design of game mechanics, loops, and systems rather than content creation and balancing. Big game projects will often have a specialist taking care of multiplayer game modes, player progression, or combat.Technical designers: This is a term usually reserved for highly qualified mixtures of a gameplay programmer and a game designer, or used for a game designer empowered by tools and scripting languages. They design and implement new game features and mechanics, be it independently or by bridging the gap between design and programming disciplines.

With a huge variety of responsibilities, and studio or game genre-based requirements, there is no set list of qualifications or skills you must acquire for any specific role. Job specs vary widely. Some companies expect their designers to script, while others settle for an elaborate design document. You may already know your top skills and passions, but have you considered skills outside your regular interest? We’ll dig into that next!

Specialization and T-shaping

More specialized positions only make practical sense in a big team or a large company that can support them. Look carefully at the opportunities available to you as well as your interests. If you have another passion, explore it; there’s a high chance it will become useful or inspiring. An interest in creative writing and storytelling can lead to a career as a narrative designer. An artistic aptitude and interest in 3D art and world-building will naturally lead you toward a level of design.

On the opposite side of heavy specialization lies T-shaping – by cross-training and attempting tasks in a variety of different disciplines, you will broaden your skill set and the spectrum of work you can handle. Spending a few hours every week on personal development (be it with a book, free tutorials, or by tinkering on a side project) is a great habit that will help you become more independent, boost your creativity, help you understand the work of your colleagues, and improve your career prospects.

Ultimately, your job is not to design the perfect gameplay system and walk away. You are there to help realize the game’s potential, turning it into the best possible experience for your players. Sooner or later on a project, you’ll find an area outside of your core responsibilities that you’d like to improve, and often, it’s much faster and easier to just work on it yourself, rather than create a list of tasks for someone else to eventually (if ever) address.

For the record, I am not advising you to be a rogue agent who constantly messes with other people’s work and tries to sneak things past the quality assurance team. I am simply encouraging you to be very proactive and seek opportunities to improve things. The difference between good and great is that extra care and attention, which often wasn’t planned for and isn’t necessarily part of the original specification.

When things are good enough, derailing other team members just for a tiny improvement is not warranted or productive. In these situations, a wide skill set can enable you to turn great into excellent. Just make sure to share the changes you’ve made with other – leave the surprises for the players, not for your team!

A variety of skills will turn you into a more helpful and independent team member, allow you to communicate more effectively with experts from different fields, and even improve your creativity. One of the most coveted ones is programming. However daunting it sounds, taking even the most basic scripting courses and tutorials will be hugely beneficial.

It will improve your understanding of how games work (including the constraints and possibilities at hand) and perhaps even allow you to create or tweak parts of a game without having to rely on programmers. Just make sure they review your work and decide whether it’s up to their standards!

When it comes to tools, word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software are absolutely essential, but don’t forget about the powers of a whiteboard or pen and paper! Even the most basic drawing can help you clarify your ideas and avoid confusion.

On top of that, having a working knowledge of popular game engines such as Unity and Unreal is highly desirable, and both offer plenty of free, easy-to-follow tutorials. Any generalist should also look into learning 2D and 3D art software, audio and video editing suites, as well as the VFX (visual effects) editors built into the aforementioned game engines.

As for personal growth beyond tools and game theory, I suggest self-studying in psychology (especially cognitive science), creative writing, physics, and economics. But remember, you learn most when you’re making something and having fun. Focus on something you enjoy or wish you could do.

Take things at a manageable pace and stay on the lookout for new tasks and opportunities to jump on. Experiment, stay curious, and don’t believe everything you see or hear. Remember, landing a dream job in the games industry is just the first step. If you wish to excel at your craft, you’ll have to carry on learning. And if practicing your current set of skills is no longer challenging, it’s time to consider acquiring new ones!

Right, we’ve hammered home the importance of learning, but even if you can do everything yourself, most of us rarely go at it alone. Making games is usually a team effort, and game development teams can differ widely. Let’s dive into that next.

Development teams

In tiny independent teams, there can often be no space for designated product people (a term used to describe game directors or managers, producers, game designers, and live operations managers). In such situations, game design responsibilities are distributed between the artists and programmers.

However, while a team with no designer may work well on a small indie scale (one to four people), the prospect of running a game team of more than five people without a designated designer is a very risky one. With the freedom of distributed design (colloquially called design by committee) often comes a lack of ownership and accountability.

Making good design decisions becomes increasingly difficult as a game is being pulled in different directions and lacks a cohesive vision. In such teams, even the most pressing gameplay issues can go unaddressed. Everyone loves to chip in with their ideas, but nobody feels compelled to work on design problems, be it for the fear of associating themselves with the problems, or the conflict of going against the rest of the team.

In a commercial scenario, you’re most likely going to be a part of a small or mid-sized team. Anything with 15 to 30 people would be considered a medium-sized team, and this number will always fluctuate, depending on where you are in the development cycle, and includes a total of two to four design-oriented staff members.

A smaller operation has a headcount of 5 to 12 people, and 1 or 2 other design-oriented people at most. It’s also quite common, especially for a senior designer working on games with a relatively manageable scope, to be the only designated game designer on the project.

Each company has its own approach to managing human resources. And while various artists and even programmers jump in and out of projects to help teams meet critical milestones, designers are often in it for the long run – that is, from pre-production until a game is released, and most likely a long time after that. This is not only because of the importance of having a unified design direction but also due to the sheer amount of time and effort required to get to know the game and make meaningful design decisions.

While bigger teams have hugely varying structures, with space for extreme specialization, medium and small teams usually share a similar setup across the industry. As a great example of the strategy of small teams, let’s look at the creators of Brawl Stars and Clash of Clans, the Finnish game company Supercell, who by definition are an assembly of independent cells.

Each cell is a small team consisting of a producer (game lead), a few artists and coders, at least one tester, a generalist game designer, and potentially a monetization/live operation-oriented person. People rotate in and out of their cells slowly as games are kicked off or killed (canceled).

Each team can also count on support from a stable of people who work for the whole company, taking care of data analytics, finance, social media, community management, operations, customer support, marketing, user acquisition, and so on. The goal of Supercell’s structure is to create an environment that facilitates creativity and gives each team the power to make decisions on a game’s design and direction. And what exactly is the role of a designer in such an environment? We’ll touch upon that next!

Responsibilities of a game designer

The tasks and responsibilities of a game designer vary dramatically and are affected by the team structure, project type, and development phase.

To shed some light on what you might be required to do, let’s look at a real-world example. Here is a list of tasks I undertook when working with a mid-sized team at a London studio, Space Ape games, on a mobile game, Transformers: Earth Wars. The game could be classified as a part of the build and battle genre – similar to Clash of Clans, but with a multitude of unique characters, all with their own attacks and abilities.

In the two-and-a-half-year period (one year to the initial test release, half a year to improve the game to a global launch, and a year of operating the game as a service), my tasks included the following:

Writing the game design document (GDD) and most of the subsequent feature specs (smaller documents explaining the game features and content required).Communicating the design vision (face to face and in writing) and overseeing the implementation of game mechanics, features, and content.Creating user flows and sketching user interface designs.Prototyping, designing, and implementing new gameplay systems and content, including characters (with varied classes, stats, behaviors, weapons, and special abilities), game modes, achievements, buildings, and defenses.Level design and the creation of single-player campaigns.Planning, scripting, and tweaking tutorials, achievements, and cutscenes.Balancing gameplay with dozens of special abilities and over 100 unique characters.Writing and integrating in-game text and dialog.Requesting and integrating new VFX. Over time, I also started doing more and more particle effects (that is, visual effects such as muzzle flashes, explosions, and projectiles) on my own by tweaking and combining existing ones (thus enabling that VFX artist to work on other games).Planning a future content roadmap – new characters, game features, and story developments.Managing an external writer and audio engineer, creating a list of tasks for them, feeding back on their work, and integrating it.Addressing the community via weekly Twitch livestreams, YouTube videos, Q&As, and so on.

Now, this sure sounds like a lot to handle! Fortunately, I had another senior designer working with me during the first year of development. We also had the entire game economy handled by our monetization specialist. This included setting up and fine-tuning the income and spending of in-game currency, level-ups, and upgrade curves, building timers and in-app purchases, and so on.

We also had a live operations expert who joined later and took care of our weekly special events, in-app purchase promotions, and content rollout. All of these tasks can, and often, will also fall on the game designer.

Don’t worry though! Throughout this book, we’ll shed light on these confusing terms and technical jargon and build an understanding of how to approach your daily tasks as a game designer! First up, how are game projects run?

Software development models

We’d like to help you better understand the production process and the path a game project takes. To achieve that, let’s take a brief look at the two most common software development models, Waterfall and Agile.

Waterfall

Waterfall, as we understand it today, is a sequential approach to production with no space for iteration. The product is supposed to go through six rigid phases in a specific order (always trickling down, such as a waterfall):

Listing all software requirements.Analyzing requirements.Designing the whole product and its architecture.Writing and implementing all of the systems and content.Testing and debugging.Operations, support, and maintenance of a completed product.

Since this process allows for no iteration, its use in games development is highly limited. It can, however, be applied on a small scale, be it on a part of a game’s content (for example, art asset production) or a single game feature with already proven mechanics and rock-solid specification.

Applying waterfall on a whole product (with unproven mechanics and systems) would most likely result in a broken game that ticks all the boxes but is not fun to play at all.

Agile

Creating a highly polished and fine-tuned work of art is not easy, which is why games benefit greatly from extensive iteration. These iterative cycles are at the core of the Agile methodology of software development.

The Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org), which popularized the movement, has led to the development of several frameworks; Scrum is one of the most popular in the games industry.

Scrum

Scrum is traditionally best suited for teams of 10–15 people; for larger teams, there are modified versions, such as Large-Scale Scrum and Scrum of Scrums.

Scrum itself usually relies on sprints (development cycles) that last a few weeks (usually between one and three), as well as short daily standup meetings (where relevant progress is shared). Longer development cycles can be used, but anything spanning more than four weeks hampers the iterative process and becomes very hard to plan. Flexibility is a core tenet of Scrum, and it has to be preserved by adhering to short (but still meaningful) sprint cycles.

In Scrum, a product owner (usually the producer) represents the interests of an end user and ensures that all development tasks are divided into a set of comprehensive tickets.

Note

Tickets are virtual reminders of the work you have to do. Most teams use online platforms such as Jira, which offer easy-to-use dashboards and manage everything, from feature and content creation tasks to bugs and issues that come out of testing. Work done in each sprint cycle has to be properly tracked as tickets so that it can be planned and tested.

A task to create a resource trading feature would probably take the shape of a user story (a task that’s described from the point of view of the end user), starting with As a player, I can easily trade resources with my guildmates..., followed by a detailed set of functionalities and acceptance criteria, and possibly paired with a user interface mockup or a link to a relevant design document.

These tasks are placed in the product backlog and wait for the end of the current development cycle. The backlog itself is a database of all tasks and bugs. It’s usually handled by tracking software such as Jira and requires regular oversight from the production staff (including the designer).

On top of utilizing online dashboards, many teams used to create a physical sprint board placed on an actual office wall or a large whiteboard. However, with the rise of hybrid and home working following the COVID-19 pandemic, these have largely fallen out of fashion.

The sprints themselves can consist of multiple phases. For example, in a game that has already been released, a three-week sprint might have two weeks of development (after which all features are locked into place) and a week fully dedicated to bug fixing, testing, and a store submission of the improved version of the game.

Each sprint formally ends with a retrospective and starts with a planning/alignment meeting. During sprint planning, any upcoming tasks are pulled from the backlog, estimated by their respective disciplines, and slotted into the new sprint.

Note

Game designers working in Agile teams will greatly benefit from their iterative nature and increased flexibility, but only if they stay diligent! Once the development cycle begins, it is unlikely you’ll be able to sneak in extra feature work. Any improvements and ideas you’d like to put into the game will often have to be turned into concise and actionable tickets and brought to everyone’s attention during sprint planning or backlog grooming (a regular analysis of all open tickets). Design documents and spreadsheets will rarely be seen by your teammates unless you include them in the tickets themselves or, better yet, review them with all relevant parties.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the common models that drive game development, let’s see how they’re applied in action and dive into the production process itself!

Production schedule and milestones

Due to their ever-changing nature, game projects are incredibly difficult to plan. By now, most gamers are very familiar with the frustration of having their most anticipated game delayed and pushed back multiple times. In such situations, no one suffers more than the developer; publishers rarely pay for extended development.

Games vary in size, and teams vary in velocity. Still, the main production phase can span anywhere from several months for some of the smaller mobile games to three years, five years, or beyond for more ambitious titles.

Game projects are divided into specific phases and milestones, and each milestone has a set of criteria that has to be fulfilled. If the project is being funded by a publisher, the developer will only be paid once the milestones are delivered, reviewed, and approved by the publisher.

The production process allows for better-structured development, better cost estimation, and a better chance of finishing a product on specification and on time. Unfortunately, big design pivots, unforeseen technical issues, licensing problems, and financial pressures are commonplace in our industry. Experienced producers always push for a buffer of an additional 20–30% development time on each milestone, and quite often, that still isn’t enough.

Note

These production processes are essential even if you work on your own or as a part of a tiny independent operation. A set of deadlines and even loosely defined short and mid-term goals to work toward will help you focus, stay motivated, and increase the chances of finishing a project.

Greenlight gates and vertical slice

Game development is risky and expensive. To minimize the risk, during the life cycle of a project, it will likely have to go through at least one greenlight gate – a point at which the fate of the game is decided. A failure to greenlight will force a team to go back and iterate on an idea or result in the game being canceled altogether.

Before real production starts, game designers work with producers to create and present the initial greenlight documentation to the key stakeholders of a company, hoping to convince them that the concept being proposed is a wise investment of time and money. In the highly saturated segments of the industry, market research and marketing teams play a huge role and, thus, are often involved from the very beginning.

Once development starts, a version of the game itself is what’s shown and assessed. It’s a common practice to start the project with the aim of spending the first several months on creating a so-called vertical slice or first playable. Vertical slices are essentially demo versions of the main game that hope to showcase its potential, prove the artistic vision, and validate basic gameplay mechanics.

Think of them as vertical slices of a cake – they may cover a very small area of the final product but contains all major ingredients (game systems are essentially horizontal layers). It serves as a good indication of whether it’s worth the commitment to make the whole cake/game, or at least to give the team a few more months to develop their product.

It’s not uncommon to use vertical slices to present a game to the press, create teaser trailers, as well as to try and get external investors or publishers on board with funding the project. Nevertheless, at diligent studios, many games will get canceled before they get that far.

A traditional milestone structure

While each studio and game team can have their own way of running a project, a variation of the traditional set of milestones and production phases (borrowed from the movie industry) is employed by most of them:

Concept phase: An idea is born! A concept document (usually in the form of a 5–20 slide presentation) is created and pitched to key stakeholders. If the project is given the go-ahead, the initial preproduction team is assembled and tasked with expanding the concept.Preproduction: This is a crucial period where the most important design and technical decisions are likely to be made. Core gameplay mechanics are validated by prototyping. The game’s scope, art direction, technical requirements, production schedule, and team size are all established. The market research and marketing teams learn about the competition, the size of the addressable market, and how to fit into it. At the end of preproduction, the GDD should be finalized by the design team and approved by key stakeholders.Production: The team begins to execute the agreed design, creating production-quality code, art assets, and content. At this stage, the game vision should be firmly set and most important technical, artistic, and game design questions answered. It may be tempting to rush past preproduction so that you can make the actual game for real, but the further the game is into the production phase, the harder it becomes to make substantial changes in product design. This is when the poor and rushed design decisions are likely to come back and haunt you. The production phase itself can extend anywhere from a few months to several years and usually consists of several important milestones:Pre-alpha: Depending on the length of the project, several interim production milestones are usually set, with the aforementioned vertical slice often being one of them. These give the team a defined mid-term goal to work toward and are useful even if there is no publisher (and, therefore, payment) associated with them.Alpha: At the end of the alpha stage, the product should be feature-complete, meaning the game is playable from start to finish (should it have one) with all functionalities and content roughly in place. That said, the quality will be far from final, with many bugs left to be fixed and various improvements and changes to be made, often based on the results of playtesting.Beta: Beta represents a much more complete version of the game. In theory, all of the content is locked in place, and the only changes being made from then on are bug fixes, balancing changes, tweaks, and polishing. Some companies will conduct public beta tests that are either closed (invite-only) or open to everyone.Gold candidate: Once all important issues have been addressed, a release candidate can be approved by the publisher to put the game on the path to distribution! The gold status itself goes back to the old practice of creating a gold master (GM) – a version of the game that would be signed off and used for mass duplication of the final product.Release: It is time to celebrate! Your game has beaten the odds! Making games is hard and expensive, and the vast majority never see the light of day.Post-release: Depending on the commercial performance and post-release support plan, the team will either drop the milestone structure and handle improvements and additions on a sprint-by-sprint basis, or create additional milestones around the creation of downloadable content (DLC) and larger expansions.

Validation funnel in-game development

Let us delve into a slightly less traditional and more experimental approach to game production. While most game studios avoid talking publicly about unreleased and failed game projects, companies such as Supercell often talk about the huge number of games they have killed (canceled) at various stages of their life cycle. Some projects get canceled as late as during a soft launch – that is, a test release in one of the smaller markets such as Canada, Australia, the Philippines, or the Netherlands.

Isn’t canceling 9 out of 10 games hugely wasteful? And why would a nearly finished game ever get shelved?

Companies that adopt this model often operate in the mobile market, where the costs of marketing and user acquisition can outweigh the entire development cost. As the mobile market is a hit-driven one and studio resources are limited, to release a poorly performing product would mean not working on something with a potentially much bigger upside – an opportunity lost, in other words.

The process of gradually culling less promising projects is what the validation funnel is all about, and there’s much to learn from it, no matter the type of game you work on and the markets you operate in. For one, games are never surefire hits. To allow for a high cancellation rate (especially in the early stages of development) is to enable your team to take more risks and be creative.

It’s also important to give the teams the power to kill their product, rather than to have that decision flow from senior executives – the former is empowering and inspiring, and the latter antagonizes and demotivates. If the decision has been made well into production, a postmortem presentation should follow. The aim of the postmortem is to analyze the production process, explain the reasoning behind key decisions, and share any learning from the project across the entire company.

The following is the validation funnel and game development process employed during my time at Space Ape Games. At the core of the process were small teams supported by shared company resources and outsourcing. While this funnel was focused on free-to-play mobile games, a similar approach could be taken with any digital product:

Ideation: At Space Ape Games, several times a year, the company came together to form self-directed mini teams that collaborate on something outside their day-to-day duties. This initiative often had a set objective and creative constraint; it may have been around T-shaping, branding, improving existing games, or coming up with new game ideas and prototypes.

If new games were the focus, the lineup of concepts and prototypes was often voted on by the wider company. Ideas that were deemed viable could then be expanded upon and taken into preproduction, or shelved, awaiting a more suitable time. The ideation process was neither strict nor clean-cut, we often had more promising ideas than spare people that could work on them, and there were several other venues in which a game idea could’ve been born.

Nevertheless, the key differentiation here was that new games were not dictated by publishers, executives, or creative directors; they formed and gained traction organically from within a whole company.

Preproduction: A small team is formed around the idea and expands on its design by defining the moment-to-moment gameplay, progression systems, player fantasy, the theme of the game, and what will make it appealing and playable for years to come. The preproduction phase at Space Ape Games was often short and overlapped with the next step, market sizing.Market sizing: This validation phase usually included market research (looking into industry trends and competition) as well as testing an idea for a brand and potential user acquisition costs. To do the latter, we would often create a set of test advertising campaigns using a few potential art styles and brands for our game.

The game would only pass if there was sufficient space for the product in the market and potential user acquisition costs were acceptable. It was possible to delay market sizing and begin work on the internal prototype, but ultimately, all games needed to make sure they can run successful marketing campaigns at acceptable costs.

Internal prototype: The game concept was now ready for execution, and a more polished and feature-rich prototype was created. The team would now extensively iterate on gameplay and gather feedback from internal and external playtesting. At the end of this phase, a company-wide test was held. If the team was satisfied with the feedback and believed in the product, and if there were no red lights on the horizon, the game idea would live on!Alpha: The team switched over to writing production-quality code and continued to develop and playtest the game. The difference here is that alpha builds were often used to gather external feedback from real players. A test version of the game with a highly limited feature set and content was released in a small territory, often with a placeholder name and under a proxy publishing name.

This can be a daunting endeavor, but the only way to test unknown quantities is to release the game into the wild and see how it fares. As everything is subject to extensive changes and most of the game would still be missing, these early versions of the game did not allow for any in-app purchases and were often not ready to provide reliable insight into important stats such as long term user retention.

They did, however, give you a baseline that could inform your future tests. It was quite common for game teams to release several of these public tests, a few months apart, to compare results and validate significant changes that have been made to the game.

Beta: This was a natural expansion of the alpha stage, with production going full steam ahead. As always, company playthroughs, playtesting, and external validation helped to push the game in a more refined direction. At the beta stage, the metagame should have been validated (at least internally).

This meant the inclusion of long-term progression and features focused on improving player retention. The game was still likely to undertake major changes and would abstain from including any in-app purchases.

Soft launch: At this stage, the game was released in a few territories, with the official title and branding. The game would remain in soft launch for several months as the team worked on additional features, balancing, and polishing the product, and improving the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs included user acquisition costs, player retention, purchase conversion rate, the estimated lifetime monetary value (LTV) of a retained user, game session length, and frequency.Release: As the game neared worldwide release, the company would finalize work on the game’s marketing and user acquisition strategies. By then, the platform representatives (in this case, Google and Apple) were already aware of the product and its upcoming release, increasing the chances of the game being featured and promoted on the digital storefront.Live operations: The worldwide release of a free-to-play game marked the end of the official development phase and the beginning of the live ops era. The game team would continue to work on designing and implementing new features and content, and the game’s live operations managers would ensure a steady stream of engaging events. In the games-as-a-service world, the global release was (and still is) just the beginning.

Thanks to market sizing, frequent playtesting, and multiple stages of internal and external validation, teams at Supercell and Space Ape Games could take risks with their ideas, yet minimize the unknowns when launching a finished product. It may have been difficult for a game to make it to the end of the funnel, but once it did, it was much more likely to become critically and commercially successful, warranting ongoing support and investment for many years to come.

As always, it’s important to note that no process is set in stone, and I am sure that Supercell and Space Ape Games are constantly evolving theirs. While every phase described here was important, the current approach is likely to shift and evolve along with industry practices, the company, and its culture.

There’s one more element to the game production puzzle that you are likely to encounter – publishing. Let’s take a brief look at that!

The role of a games publisher

It’s possible that a game project you’ll be working on will have a publisher other than your studio. The relationship between the publisher and the studio can either be internal (in which case they own the developer) or external (the publisher is connected to the studio).

Whatever the relation to the developer, the publisher will not only release the product under its own name and market it but also very likely cover all of the development costs. Deals and royalty structures vary greatly, but in most cases, publishers are the ones who keep the cash flowing between all involved parties and are the ones who are set to gain (or lose) the most.

Publishing can get very complex; sometimes, more than one studio will work on a single game, and other times, an external owner of an intellectual property (IP) will be involved (the IP itself can be a brand, a book, a video game, or a movie universe).

When a publisher is engaged in the project, the detailed milestone structure mentioned previously will be of paramount importance, as it will carry financial outcomes for the developer. Publishers will have to approve the GDD and provide feedback on each and every milestone.

This can, of course, limit the flexibility of the developer, but it will also help ensure the project stays on track and has a chance of being released. Sometimes, publishers also take care of initial ideation and seed the game pitch to the developer.

Summary

As you surely realize by now, game development is quite complex, and game design itself can be a very broad and elusive subject.

We might have just scratched the surface, but so far, we’ve looked at how games are produced, what kinds of teams make them, and what responsibilities a designer can assume within a development team.

Some games might have no real ending, but every game project has a start! We’ll now put some of that industry knowledge into perspective and start looking at how to work on a game idea and turn it into a presentable game concept.

And remember, your job is not to design the perfect gameplay system and walk away. You are there to help realize the game’s potential and turn it into the best possible experience for your players. Put your personal preferences and biases aside and focus on what’s good for the project, even if it requires you to scrap ill-fitting ideas and throw away weeks or months of work in the process.