Saturday, April 28, 2012

Careers In Game Design - What Type Of Positions Are There?

By Sean T Saunders


In the past four decades the art and skill of designing computer games has witnessed immense advancements. So have the individuals involved in the industry, and also the skill sets that are needed to develop a computer game that is entertaining and challenging. Designing a computer game involves creating the content for the game and setting up the rules that govern it. The abilities required for video game designer careers are technical, creative and writing skills. Early in the development of video games, most of these tasks were often undertaken by the same person, called the lead programmer.

The lead programmer framed the software programming codes besides doing all the game designer jobs for the video game. As computers became more powerful as well as faster, computer games became more complicated and job functions began to separate. The lead programmer focused on writing code while the game designer careers included creating the gameplay, storyline, characters and setting for the video game. Few modern computer games involve only one person creating the entire game and in some big budget video games there might be several dozen designers working on various parts of the game under the chief designer.

Depending on the complexity of the game and its budget, there could be several lead designers and even many junior designers working on different areas of the video game. A few of the different kinds of jobs that fall under the game designer heading are lead designer, systems designer also called as game mechanics designer, environmental designer or level designer and writer. Many of the people involved in the game design process started their video game careers by being game testers and studying mistakes made by previous game designers. The design of any new computer game begins with a concept from the lead designer.

The lead designer is normally the one who creates the basic vision and concept of the new computer game and he is also in charge of the junior designers working at various tasks and coordinating that work. The lead designer is the key decision maker and is responsible for good communication amongst the team members. The lead designer is the one that presents the resultant product outcome of his team work to outside departments or companies and is also usually responsible for final documentation of the video game design process. This position calls for a person who has an imaginative mind as well as a sound technical knowledge.

The junior designers on the team who are in charge of balancing and designing the mechanics for the graphic game are titled systems designers or game mechanic designers. As computer games become more complicated and more extensive, the task of creating the missions, levels and environments for the games has taken more significance in the design process. This job would be undertaken by the environmental designer or level designer. A junior member of game design team is often tasked with the job of creating the user interface design. The design team usually has a writer who is responsible for scripting the game story line, dialogues, journals and various other content.




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