Thursday, April 26, 2012

What Kind Of Game Design Jobs Are Available?

By Sean T Saunders


Computer games have been around for forty years now and they have changed a lot during that time. As video games became more advanced, the abilities that people in the video game industry required changed too. If you are interested in designing video games that are entertaining and challenging you'll need computer programming knowledge, artistic and writing skills aside from gaming experience. You should be able to conceptualize the game and write the rules that will allow it to function. When computer game designer jobs first started, the whole process was very often undertaken by just one person, 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 would be responsible for writing code while the game designer positions included designing the gameplay, storyline, characters and environment for the video game. Few modern games involve only one person designing the entire game and in some big budget computer games there might be several dozen designers working on various aspects of the game under the main designer.

When the video game that is being developed is complicated and carries a big budget, there could be a couple of lead designers and a large team of junior designers. There are several different job functions which now fall under the category of game design. The different positions available for junior designers are level designer or environmental designer and systems designer or game mechanics designer and even report writing and game documentation. Many video game designers started in the industry as game testers, so they have got experience in the kinds of design mistakes that usually happen while developing beta video games.

The lead designer is normally the one who creates the original vision and concept of the new video game as well as being in charge of the junior designers working at different tasks and coordinating that work. The lead designer is the main decision maker and is responsible for maintaining a good interaction amongst the team members. The lead designer is the person who presents the resultant product outcome of his team work to outside departments or agencies and is also usually responsible for collating the documentation resulting from 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 computer game are titled systems designers or game mechanic designers. As gaming industry 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 most often includes a writer who is responsible for scripting the game story line, dialogues, journals and various other content.




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