Concept

The concept phase can be the most exciting and challenging depending on the number of people involved. This is where every passionate mind sets themselves to trying to convince the team to build their game which can lead to some head butting, but a good team can quickly land on a decent idea and direction. Creating a theme and original mechanics for a game can be difficult enough with the number of existing games out there today. Trying to make an original game with unique mechanics is almost impossible, instead I like to look at what has been done and find new and creative ways to reuse existing material and make it our own.

Brainstorming

In this phase no idea is a bad idea. Compiling everything and organizing thoughts brings me a lot of joy. Using software like free mind or Trello to gather ideas is always a major help but don't discount a brainstorming session with a whiteboard and some eraser markers. Certain software can help this become a collaborative process and everyone has a preference. Deciding what to use as a team and ensuring everyone os familiar with it is an important step that I never miss.

During this phase it is absolutely crucial as a leader to manage expectations and ensure all members know what their roles and duties are. Everyone will have opinions and ideas. Write them down. During this stage of concept design you have to keep a few things in mind. 

• theme: mood, gore, art style 

• target audience: age, demographics -  who are you building this game for

• engine: unreal or unity - get familiar with your teams preferences, understand who your top performers are, and weigh that decision carefully

• platform: pc, console, mobile

• timeline and budget: 

Theme

The finer details of figuring out a theme are more suited for a different page on my site. If anyone is curious about my process and how i created and developed some of my personal projects click the currently non functional hyperlink here to view that data. For the purposes of level/game design the only element of theme that really comes to the fore is the mood of the game. Building an ominous setting, tight spaces, twisted trees and creaking boards creates a very different mood when compared to wide open spaces, colourful and abundant flora and fauna and lighter tones for music. The trick is knowing what abilities will fit in the space, and what challenges the abilities are meant to overcome while matching the theme of the game.

An example is lockpicking; Each of the themes described above (the ominous/dark and the colourful/open) could potentially have a lockpicking mechanic. 

• In the ominous game, lockpicks might break, the locked objects could be trapped, lockpicking could make noise that attracts enemies, the camera could focus on the lockpick preventing the player from looking around to create a sense of danger. 

• In the brighter game that version of lockpicking might not be as well received. It could be a simple button press or a timing mini-game to unlock it with much fanfare.

Target Audience

The age categories and ratings for the game will help you aim at certain elements in the dev process. In my personal experience as a designer, I have had quite a bit of success in making simple games for younger audiences with the formula of low challenge, high rewards, lots of colours. The cool factor applies to any age group. The rule of cool. Having the ability to make a game more challenging usually appeals to an older and more experienced gaming audience.

Difficulty

I prefer having the option to appeal to a variety of gamers by having a modifiable difficulty meter. That being said, I am loathe to simply increase enemy health or player weapon damage to simply make a game more of a grind. There are so many great ways to make a game more challenging and my first choice is always making a more aggressive AI before I look at changing health and damage values in a game. Even adding more enemies or timed challenges can prove to be very rewarding.

Platform

PC, Console or Mobile. This is a  huge decision that creates parameters for the development. Each has its limitations and advantages.

Research in every aspect of the game is critical. Artists need references for style, form, texture and so many other components. Programmers find reference to how mechanics have been done in other projects to help give a baseline for ideas and cut down on time while gameplay designers look for what works and what has failed in the past and why. There is so much to learn from the successes of others and our own past projects but do not discount the learnings from your failures as well as the failures of others. Failures have just as much to teach us as successes if not more as game designers. 

Learnings from Previous Projects

I have personally worked with teams as small as 3 persons (3 programmers using art asset packs and delving into the wonderful world of everything art) to teams as large as 30 members. Having a common area where you can share your research as a team is not only ideal but necessary. Sharing progress keeps everyone on the same page and helps to motivate and inspire as well as indicate which team members are struggling and may require assistance or guidance.

Here are key elements that help me in this phase

• create a mood board

• post all art for theme together and remove any suggestion that isn't fitting as a whole

• begin creating an art index of game elements that need to be designed, start with the highest priority items

• gather references for every asset; the geology, fauna, flora, structures, clothing, weapons, persons, backgrounds, effects and sounds

Leadership and Team Building

The brainstorming phase is always exciting. In this phase it is important to write everything down. There are no bad ideas, I have personally been surprised at how the game can evolve in this stage and the results can be very intriguing. This is also an opportunity to learn a bit about your teammates and what inspires them, what they are passionate about. 

One major learning from this phase is that it has to end. The temptation to debate incessantly is always there as persons attempt to shape the game their own way. Ensure that your team has leadership that can decide when to start moving forward with a goal in mind. Not everyone will be happy but the end goal is to create a game.

The GDD

This may be the most important document your project has. Everything anyone needs to know about the game you are creating resides in the GDD, and if you think drafting it is hard, wait until you try to get your team to reference it before making decisions (tinged with sadness and mild bitterness here :)).

The responsibility off the GDD has fallen to me on every project I have worked on thus far and honestly I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. Organizing a GDD, inputting all of the information, posting reference materials and notes, updating the document as changes are being made, keeping everyone up to date, reading the notes, the comments and answering them is a pleasure for me. Yes I know how insane that may make me sound but it is the truth. I embrace the chaos of the GDD and I am always very proud of it when finalized. 

 Working with New Devs

A hurdle that we encountered often enough while working as a team was helping people build the habit of referencing the GDD before beginning each task. Very few people referenced it, while others forgot of its existence entirely and this lead to team members redoing work often. The solutions we came up with as a team were;

• Eliminate any documents that were obsolete, destroy the links in all docs

• Create a reference link in our job board

• Encourage team members to seek answers to questions in the documentation, eliminating the need for multiple and repetitive one on one conversations

• Ensure someone keeps the document updated to avoid miscommunication and frustration

Those tricks helped ensure that teammates were building the habit of referencing the document. Keeping it up to date daily was a huge part of our success as a team..

Creating a small workable version of the game is crucial. Not all ideas are gold and that is a very tough pill to swallow for many people. The secret to creating a fun game is letting people play what you have and accepting the feedback from the testers. In this step I aim to achieve;

• Functional Core Mechanics

• Gray Box Test Level

• Test Gameplay

• Make Adjustments

Once each of these elements is complete, you you have your playable demo. There are going to be changes made to almost everything at this point. Ambitious ideas might be put to bed, the size of the project could be halved or quartered depending on many factors (usually time/money) and this will challenge you.

I stay on top of this element by making as many of the values for abilities and functions able to be modified quickly via sliders. Testers will modify and test the controls and give you feedback. At this point you can gather all the data and find the common ground. Before you know it you will have a game that appeals to as many persons as possible, or you will discover that your game model is not viable as it is. Pivot, make changes, or get on to the next idea and push forward. We learn more from failures than success.

My absolute favourite step as a level and game designer. The first time you have a functional area, test area, or little corner of the world you have created to run around in and test abilities will bring you so much joy.
In this phase I bring my real world construction experience into play, and there is no more valuable tip that I can share than this "Measure twice, cut once". In the construction world a bad cut wastes material and time. This is the same in the video game industry. There are a couple of lessons I learned the hard way that really stuck with me and I will share them now with you so hopefully you can avoid the same mistakes.

• Scale....Scale.....SCALE

• Determine units of measurement

• Ensure everyone is familiar with the units of measurement

• Don't get carried away making an insane test level, its going in the trash later.

• Focus on the core mechanics

• Post progress daily (the minimum) or hourly

• A picture is worth a thousand words, and seeing progress is inspiring to everyone on your project

• Keep the theme in mind even in the test level

Using simple geometric shapes will allow you to make quick adjustments to everything in the test environment. I still attempt to use my skills at level design to create a flow of sorts, using the lay of the land to guide the testers to where they need to be. Everything you create is an opportunity to better yourself, treat everything you make as a challenge and the improvements will come naturally.

Keep scale in mind and try to ensure that any code made has values that can be modified easily in the game. This will allow you to create hazards and challenges that fit the abilities and functions available to the player. 

• A jump puzzle on floating platforms isn't testable if the players jump distance is too limited.

• moving the obstacles or platforms is an option, but a short leap is often less exciting than a long one.

Does you game have enemy units, NPCs or any AI? Ensure they can travel where you need them to go. Ensure doorways and hallways allow for the player and enemy units to pass through them without getting hung up on the geometry.

Your game model and abilities may change over time as you iterate on the design. Create a white-box level that can accommodate those changes. Having empty spaces where you can expand to add more challenges or more geometry as the game evolves is a good thing, better than reworking the whole space to accommodate quicker movement or bigger jumps.

The testing and feedback stage can be a true test of your humility and sanity, so buckle up. The more experienced the tester, the more professional the feedback. This step can be painful for game designers and level designers alike but be sure to put your pride aside here my friends. The feedback here will turn your passion project that you are essentially making to be a cool game (your opinion) into a game enjoyed by more than just yourself. If the goal is to make a game that sells then this is a necessary step towards that goal.

There are a few things that I've learned as a level designer since I finished school and the most importance of flexibility. Be flexible, work with the people around you, absorb what the testers tell you with an open mind and try to apply what you can, if possible. Not every change can be made and some suggestions are made without an understanding of how code works. Flush the impossible and hang on to the plausible, you may be very surprised with the results.

Keep your timeline and deadlines in mind when receiving feedback and making changes to the game. Having a hard cut off for changes will improve the quality of the presented product during deadlines. Last minute changes before presenting can result in errors that will make your game unplayable. 

Level Layouts are my personal favourite aspect of game development. Creating a space where players can use the abilities we designed to conquer challenges and test their abilities is why I do what I do. There are so many aspects to consider when creating a level layout, from the purpose of the level, the theme, and of course the pacing of the game.

A few questions need answering before I dive into a level layout.

• What are the players meant to accomplish?

• What is this level supposed to teach?

• Is the player meant to develop or reinforce a mechanic?

• Mastery of a mechanic, very challenging

• What purpose does the level serve; combat, puzzle, stealth, movement puzzle, player HUB for NPC interactions, etc.

All of these need to be discussed and nailed down prior to creation or even white-boxing. Understanding the levels purpose heavily influences the design process and helps to avoid missteps and mistakes.

Level Flow & Navigation

Making an area easily navigable and providing visual queues for players to orient themselves is key in any level. Using a map feature/mechanic can help a player navigate a larger map with a bit more ease. My designs move forward with the assumption that a map UI will not be available. This forces me to consider all the elements of the map to create a space that players can become familiar with. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this effect is the use of landmarks. A mountain, unique building, smoke, colour changes in different sectors, lighting, even the skybox or position of the sun and starts can all help a player find their way without ever opening a map UI.

Level Objectives & Player Progression

The main objective must be kept in mind Is this an open area for exploration, is there an exit, enemies to clear, a boss fight, etc.

Secondary objectives make an area more useful, and using everything you have adds so much value to a game. Are there collectibles, side quests, puzzles, interactable objects, unlockable new areas, mini games etc.

At this point it also makes sense to consider at what points the players progress should be saved. Does a death send them to the beginning of the level, are there checkpoints or save points, auto-save points? Is the player meant to complete the entire challenge in one swoop or do we show mercy and allow them to save progress after each major hurdle. All of this is game design as well as level design and is very important for the creators to stick with the theme and pacing of the game. Avoid creating a game that is too punishing (unless you are aiming for that sort of thing (Darksouls)).

Being a junior programmer has been the greatest asset as a game designer. Any designer should have (at the very least) a passing understanding of how to code game mechanics, physics, etc. This knowledge allowed me to accurately and concisely communicate how the games mechanics and various components would come together as a whole. I have been fortunate enough in my career to work with some extremely competent programmers who took the time to work out the kinks in any game mechanic we faced as a team. It is my opinion that problems should be tackled as a group. Often someone needs to make a concession one way or another and these must be made with the final goal or vision for the game in mind. 

Laying out game mechanics early on and defining them in detail will avoid problems down the road. For a programmer to have to redesign their code to function a different way is not a fun process. Ensure that everyone has read the GDD properly and that they truly understand their task, this will make the flow of development much smoother.

The first project I worked on with a team of students was one of the most challenging mostly due to a lack of willingness to read documentation before starting design. Take the time to read any literature and ask the questions that need asking before starting to write code, the same way and artist might inform themselves and gather reference images to create a new model. Finding examples of code online led many of our programmers to copy paste code that conflicted with the project as it was and in the end caused more problems than it solved. Remember, not every shortcut ends up being a shortcut in the end. Research, discuss, plan.

As a designer I had a very limited experience in the creation of 3D assets for the games we developed as a team. I created a few textures, some simple models for building frames and whatnot. Where my strength lay was in organizing and cataloguing reference materials for the artists to use. This saved them time (when the references were used) and energy that was very appreciated. Ask 5 different artists to design a rope-bridge and you will get 5 very different bridges. Reference materials that are thematic and fit the look of the game will avoid having them redo their work which we all know can be devastatingly draining when your hard work gets tossed aside.

Working alongside artists was one of the most rewarding and revealing steps of the game design process. I learned that my age and experience were great asset to the team. Below I will chare some of the issues that arose during development that will hopefully help anyone making their first games or assuming the role of a game designer for the first time to avoid certain pitfalls or what I call "energy vampires".

Sound breathes life into the scene and truly allows the player to be immersed in your world, as such the sound design of every element os crucial in getting the "vibe" that the developers intended. 

Environmental Sound

• A trickle of water, the scuttling of crabs on stone floors, the sound of surf receding from the beach, all of these conjure images in the mind. Its is the sound artist and sound designers jobs to make sure the sounds match the art and the look of the game. 

Interface Sounds

• The swish of a cursor, the click of a button, each element of UI should match the theme of the game with an emphasis on not being overdone or annoying. It is a surprisingly delicate balance to create appealing sounds in menus.

Voice Acting

• An absolute passion of mine. A voice artist must deliver their lines in a convincing way that makes the characters convincing and memorable (especially with a main). Background characters make a scene feel alive and shouldn't be undersold. This is perhaps one of the most difficult positions to fill as many people will have a very different idea of what every character might sound like, and on top of that you may be limited by the talent pool available for bringing the characters to life. On a personal note, I encourage anyone and everyone to try the hand at voice acting, the experience is rewarding and the results may surprise you.

Sound Effects

• The metal of metal of forged swords, the humming engines on an interstellar spacecraft, footsteps in a shallow pool and the twinkle of a fairy's spell all of these effects make the environment and the visuals more astounding.

"There is no story in Video Games" a provocative quote from one of my professors while studying game design. Naturally the writers and lovers of story in my class were very happy to argue the opposite. Story, Dialogue and world building create memorable moments that stay with the player forever. I could quote line after line from videogames older than I am to prove the point, but dialogue can make a game just as memorable as action and is a crucial component in making the type of game you are aiming at.

One of my personal learnings from developing games is to not get lost in narrative. First and foremost a game must function, be exciting and challenge the player in many ways. All of this can be accomplished without a story line. I know it is tempting the make sure the player is fully immersed into your world, but that temptation often leads to writers trying to cram story into the game which can lead to delaying the gameplay.

A great world design has many elements that lead the player to quickly become familiar with the areas you've designed. Certain elements are easy to implement, such as obvious landmarks to help orient a player such as mountains in the distance, a celestial body, buildings and structures or even effects such as smoke. Different colours or styles for buildings can help identify unique areas as well as sounds and lighting. Do not underestimate the importance of signage, it helps guide and adds a sense of realism to towns and crossroads. 

Terrain, flora, fauna, climate and ambiance can help identify certain areas of the game. Every detail is important and can help a player become familiar with your world. A large river running from north to south is easy to follow and from an elevated position can help players orient themselves in your world. In a more industrial setting or a more contained environment use colours, style, signage, NPCs, lights and other prompts to help lead the player where you need them to be.

At this stage others will be testing your game and provide feedback on glitches varying in severity from game breaking to minor fixes. This is also an opportunity to gauge feedback from the testers for the feel of the game, its enjoyability and mechanic tweaks. 

For the designers, programmers and artists alike, especially if you are working on your first game, this phase of game dev can leave you feeling very sensitive and drained. Professional testers will provide good feedback, and you may read opinions that you don't care for. Do not let that get to you. Look at it as an opportunity to grow as a developer and make the most of the comments. Some opinions you will disregard, others you'll take to heart and make the necessary changes to the game.

Programmers

Programmers will be called to tweak a variety of game features. The player movement seems sluggish, the jump feels awkward, the timing for effects seems off, the AI pile up and get stuck on the tiniest things. Each and every iteration should make the game feel better and more smooth, but keep in mind major changes will have a cascading effect on other game aspects as well. Be mentally prepared to keep working at the game until the majority feel as though it is a good game with smooth and fully functional mechanics, you won't please everyone. Just keep in mind in the end you want a game that sells and is popular to the masses and you will have a success.

Artists

Artists may face criticism about assets they are very proud of in so many ways. Keep in mind that the fixes asked of you are for the final look of the game and it may not be exactly what you envisioned. In a professional environment, when asked to make a change or an improvement, see it as a test of skills and use the opportunity to improve or learn new skills. 

Programmers face the challenge of debugging here. Edge cases where specific problems occur will lead to hours of going through code line by line. Lean on your fellow programmers. Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can make a huge difference. Reach for experienced programmers, they may have a simple solution to a problem that seems earth shattering, or they may spot a line of code that doesn't work with other mechanics in minutes instead of the hours it will take you to find it.

Artists may encounter mistakes in their models, especially when movement comes into play. Trouble rendering textures or any of the variety of simple to complex issues arise. If you are fortunate enough to have access to more experienced artists use their knowledge. A huge problem for you may have been encountered in their past and is now a simple fix. 

Words of Wisdom

In the end keep in mind that most games are a team effort, do not face all of the stressed of creating a game alone. Take your breaks, work within your shedule and keep moving forward. Every failed attempt at a fix is one step closer to a solution.

This is the phase where you will be happy to have made the game modular and having values that are easily changed can make this phase much more pleasant. Having sliders to control movement, fire rate, jump height, jump length and every other value you can think of makes tweaking the game for most peoples level of comfort a dream. Obviously not every element can be designed this way but if you plan ahead and build certain systems into your game, it will make this stage much quicker.

The hardest part. This is the stage of the game dev where you arent making any changes anymore. You have to accept your baby for what it is and allow it out into the world. It may not be perfect, but its yours. You'd like to get it more ready, maybe another month or two but the reality is you have deadlines, timelines, benchmarks, release dates and investors to please. So, off it goes. You did it!! You made a game and now you wait for the first feedback from the release and hope it is received with love. Either way its done now and you can finally take a breath.... and then dive into the next project with all the learnings from this one. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors and may all your games teach you something.