Game Design

Game Design is the process of creating the concepts of a game product or modifying existing concept to serve a new purpose. Practically all game design processes are unique and there are multiple ways to do it, even though there are some known best practices in the field that have been backed by years of experience. When dwelling in the deeper layers of mechanics and systems the fundamentals start to become fairly similar and it is where the core of the gameplay rules are often formed. But it is nonetheless possible to approach game design from almost any angle such as literature, educational, competitive, historical etc. and make something out of it with the right talent.

In game design and other design jobs as well it is relatively easy to have visualization concept within your mind, but to actually make it a reality is something much more complex process to do. This is why a talented game designer should have a decent proficiency in various fields that are required in the targeted game project productions and solve issues related to conflicts between the expectation and reality.

One of the essential ways to get parts moving on a game project is to have a talented communication with others who are part of the development team or those who are just participating to a specific production section. Working with various programmers, artists, designers, marketing professionals and such without mixing the original concept along the way can become one of the hardest challenges in any production. Usually the best practice is to define clearly what tasks are required from a specific role and then communicate those responsibilities towards the role carrier.

Creating a good foundational game design documents can lead to more stable production and more accurate risk assessment along the way. While the actual document sizes and depth layers can change between the projects, these documents should be always created with care and thought processes behind them. Game design documents should cover from the high concepts to overall production charts and detailed technical documents in almost any commercial game product.

Taking available resources into account with game projects is generally a critical issue to make a project a success or placing it on the hold for the time being. Resources are not always about financial support or having the right tools, but rather the professional capability to create something that is actually oriented towards the final design plans. Often with game development finding the right balance with available resources is hard thing to do and definitely something that should be in center of attention at the early and mid-stages of the production.

Traditional way to approach all new game designs is to create the prototypes, this is common practice in almost every production oriented industry that is focused on assets building. When it comes to game design and game development prototypes provide the functional system layout and navigation charts to guide further designs in the project without causing major conflicts. Best practices with game design prototypes is generally to have more than one prototype of the desired feature, system or a mechanic in order to get perspective for the design as a whole.