The Role of a Great Game Designer

by Richard Carrillo

This book is for game designers of all experience levels and also for the teams, developers, and support staff they work with. It showcases the reality of what game designers actually do (or should be doing) and sheds light on some widespread misconceptions of the job. This is an easy-to-read, practical guide for the following Game Designers: Understand what Game Designers really own and the skills required to be successful. Anyone can design games but not everyone is a Game Designer. What distinguishes those two is the team. Game Designers are part of a passionate development team and working successfully with that team is as important as the game design itself. This book reveals how to successfully drive the gameplay experience from vision to final product. It also dives deeper into the skills required to inspire the team and build belief in the design.Future Game Designers: If you want to become a Game Designer because you believe you have great game ideas then you’ll be truly disappointed with the actual job. Your ideas aren't as important as your critical thinking and ability to design. In short, how you turn the millions of ideas already out in the world and the thousands of ideas the dev team already has into solid designs that solve the current problem, fit the vision’s goals, and enhance the gameplay experience. This book will further discuss the difference between Ideas and Designs as well as dive deep into the true day to day job of a Game Designer.Teams/Support: For everyone else already in game development but not on the design team, you'll be able to use the knowledge in this book to increase your understanding of game design and better your collaboration with the designers on your teams. After all, it's the game designer's job to inspire you. Great design means nothing without a team driving their passion into the product. The team is the designer's first customer. The moment they forget that, morale starts to fall and the game starts to suffer. But that doesn’t mean the customer is always right. This book will showcase what designers are expected to own and how they should always turn to the team for ideas and feedback.Whether you’re new to game design, looking to hone your skills, or dreaming of completely restructuring your design team’s philosophy, there’s something here for you. The ultimate goal of this book is to raise the role of Game Designer to a higher standard across the video game industry.

Genres: Game Design

238 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 9, 2021

Reviews

[Lana Bachynski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book overall, and I think it is an excellent resource that would prove particularly valuable for anyone interested in game design as a career without knowing much about it. Carrillo does a great job breaking down the design experience into easy-to-understand concepts, and dismantles some misconceptions about what being a designer is all about (i.e. the 'idea' guy). The book has many delightful bite-sized takeaways throughout. I particularly enjoyed the section about creative problem solving and the tendency for designers to favour tearing things down instead of building them up; "Don't Trust Your Gut" is a great framing for not writing something off before getting it in game.

I've gone back and forth on my rating for this one, but there are two key reasons that my rating isn't higher:

The book was not quite what I would have expected from the lofty title. While I think Carrillo does an excellent job at painting an accurate picture of day-to-day life as a designer, I found the depiction of what it means to be a 'great' game designer to be rather shallow. Much of the book is focused on what I perceive to be fundamental game design concepts and processes: what is a game, what is game design, and what it looks like to take something from idea to final implementation; the hard-skills you need at a baseline to do the job. For the majority of the book, the only wisdom vis a vis what it means to be 'great' comes in the form of the expectation that all designers are also leaders (which I'll touch on in a moment). Perhaps there is an argument to be made that the role of a great designer IS to know all of these fundamental concepts inside and out, but for me, it felt as though I was reading a lot of preamble and never quite getting where I wanted to go. A lot of how to be a designer, and not that much about what a truly great one looks like - or at the very least, not enough insight into the variety of ways one could be great.

The other piece that brought down my rating was Carrillo's framing of designers as leaders. Being a leader as a designer is presented as the only option; not only your fate, should you choose this path, but also your burden. There is a tonal undercurrent in Carrillo's choice of language that seems to present a philosophical stance that I simply disagree with: one where the weight of the world rests solely upon design shoulders, as the default and absolute owners of any vision ("all eyes are on us"). As a designer it is integral that one must have the ability to recognize people "won't always fall in line" (which implies, to me, that in a perfect world, they would), and it is only in how one executes upon their grave responsibility to rally and wrangle everyone around them that makes one great.

An example: In one part of the book, Carrillo says, "Don't pull the "I'm the designer" card unless you are prepared to have your feature implemented in the worst way possible, with the absolute minimal effort." Which I don't disagree with. However, the inclusion of this sentence seems to imply to me that there IS an appropriate time/place/circumstance to pull the 'I'm the designer card', which I fundamentally disagree with.

It's tough to write about because it is such a subtle thread that is sewn throughout, and I don't want readers to miss out on the good in here (i.e. You want people who challenge you. Working with people who will ask questions/dig into things will make you and the game stronger for it), but for me, the good messages feel consistently undercut by the indulgent verbiage such that it undoes some of the authenticity behind Carrillo's intent; A great game designer is a benevolent king vs. a great game designer is a genuine collaborator.

To go on one small tangent, the writing reminds me of a tactic used by Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I never read the book because it sounded like it was for scumbags, but I ended up having to read it for a leadership book club at work and discovered the truth: the book IS targeted at scumbags, but in the sense that the author is saying "if you feel the urge to "win" friends and "influence people" you probably need the help this book will provide!" The title is a sneaky way to hit the core audience with precision. Genius.

I WANT to think that Carrillo's language choices are there to serve a similar purpose: dog whistles for designers with an 'old school' mentality who could benefit from the lessons Carrillo presents and become exceptional collaborators.

But who knows! No matter what, it was an interesting read. Lots of good stuff. Carrillo has a wealth of experience, overall his commentary is great, and there is a lot of insight for junior-to-mid-level talent and the design-curious. Even with some of my criticisms in mind, design collaborators can glean a lot from the design mentality and the pressure that exists among design craftspeople. There is a ton of value among these pages, and while I still would have liked to see Carrillo spend more time in the deep end, I think it says a lot that I’d be eager to hear more about what he has to say.

[Alex B · Rating 5 out of 5]

FANTASTIC! I loved it. Perhaps the advice isn't all 100% original, who cares it felt like he was able to completely change my frame of reference for how to build games, from top to bottom.

I love the road analogy, and going over the processes of creating and redesigning a game was perfect. It helped me understand my own process much better and how to think.

I got this book because I couldn't get another, ironically having low hopes for this one. This book has ended up being the best game development book on my shelf. I am super well read on games but I will still consider this one close to my heart, even if another does a better job of instructing me.

To conclude: Very well written, well formatted, and fantastic food for thought. Also it's nice to know the entire industry has always been a bit of a cluster fuck due to it's open and close nature, it's not just today's job market.

Slight spoilers: The line "If you find a system frustrating, perhaps it was not built for you." was a revolutionary line for me. In the context of the previous pages this line blew me away. I am probably paraphrasing but to think of the world like that, a road like that was so eye opening for me.