A while ago, I asked some people, including people on these forums, how to become a professional game designer. I was told that becoming a game designer requires more than being good at game design: one must also be familiar with practically every part of game production. So, I went ahead and learned how to make a game. An RTSgame, which I was told was the most challenging and, therefor, hopefully the most impressive to employers. This demo shows that I am familar with Unity fundimentals, relatively complex C# programing, Photon networking, AI, compute-shader usage, and pathfinding. Most importantly, it shows that I can come up with lots of good, novel ideas for game mechanics which come together as an experience that (subjectively) is actually fun.
So⌠what now? Do I just put at the top of my resume that Iâm made this thing, then start sending it around? Are there conferences that will accept ugly demos from novices? Iâm not shooting for anything more than entry-level, but I wonât comprimise on doing design work: I wonât become a drone who gets chewed out by studio after studio.
Do you have a qualification in games design, or a games focused qualification? If not then you will likely struggle as a lot of studios will expect not only university level qualifications but often experience somewhere in the chain. Its not uncommon to do QA before getting a game design role, have you any experience in the games industry?
If not, then yes you actually will have to compromise on design work, which is a masssively over saturated market. Most studios have very few design roles vs every other role, something to bare in mind.
But regardless of all of that without seeing your portfolio its hard to tell you your chances and how to improve them.
Assuming your demo is as good as you say it is, start networking, letting people know youâre looking for work, contacting studios, and applying for jobs. Thereâs no one special way in.
If you havenât already, get a portfolio website up and use it to show off that demo, as well as any other relevant work. A demo is only useful if it can be seen.
Keep in mind that youâll be competing with other people. So keep learning, improving the portfolio, and looking out for opportunities.
Does anyone else get sick of people posting about their game, demo, portfolio, etc and not posting a link to the darn thing? If you are proud of your work, trying to market your game, or just trying to get feedback then post a download link and/or video!
@AidanofVT this is not directed specifically at you, just a trend Iâve noticed, your post is the straw the broke the camels back so to speakâŚ
⌠but the point still holds, let us play the demo, or at least watch something. If your game is a mess we will tell you so, and if it demonstrates the things you say that it does then we can help with the next steps.
EDIT: A positive is that you actually went and did something. 99% of people ask for the help, get told what to do, and then donât do anything more, so you are way ahead of the curve there.
This is actually really important. You canât improve without knowing what to work on. And a given design isnât good when its designer thinks so, itâs good when its audience thinks so.
While Iâm in here againâŚ
You say âdesignâ, but most of the stuff you listed out is programming, and thatâs got little to do with whether or not youâre a âdroneâ. A designer can be just as much of a drone as a programmer or an artist or a sound engineer or anything else.
What actual work do you want to be doing? I ask this because lots of people use the term âdesignâ to refer to different things, and when people see your demo different aspects are important depending on what skill youâre trying to show off.
The worst ones are the marketing ones. Posts along the lines of âIâve made this game, how do I market it?â, without so much as a link to the game in the OPs signature. Surely sharing the game in all of your existing networks is marketing 101.
To the OP: Game design jobs are just like every other type of job. You network like crazy, and you apply for jobs like crazy. And eventually you manage to bump into someone else that needs your particular skill set. You might benefit from reading some generic advice about job hunting, skip the game specific advice for now.
Like Kiwasi said, getting a job in any industry is the same. Thereâs nothing special about game dev.
To be honest, you sound a bit lost as to what youâre doing. And I think having everyone critique your demo is kind of beside the point.
Think about it for a second. Would you hire someone based on one demo, which you yourself described as âuglyâ? Even if your demo is fine, it says very little about your ability as a game designer in general. Imagine hiring someone as a music composer based on their ability to play one tune on the piano.
If youâd gone to university for game design, how many game prototypes do you think youâd have done by now? 50? 100? Probably there are people with 1000 by the time they graduate. How do you expect to get hired if you have 1, which you made because you were basically âtoldâ to by someone else?
Honestly, if you want to be hired as a game designer (like anything else) you have to demonstrate a lot of proof of your passion for it, a development of skills through constant practice and progression, a willingness to get involved in all kinds of projects to get experience not just with the technical side but working alongside other people in that role.
Have you done Ludum Dare and all those other kinds of competitions? Have you offered to work on projects for free to get experience?
I see people on artstation who are still at school for art that have a portfolio of tens or hundreds of fantastic showpieces that makes them look like theyâve been doing it all their life (which could very well be the case). If I were you, Iâd get to work building a portfolio of at least twenty different prototypes (if not more) and prove to yourself that youâre worth hiring as a well-rounded game designer before asking someone else to do so.
With these kinds of threads, I always expect to see things like:
How can I improve my portfolio?
I applied for 20 different game design jobs and no luck, how can I improve my application? <link to resume/portfolio>
Iâve been doing X as a hobby for three years and I think Iâm starting to get good at it, hereâs a few of the things I can do, how do I get hired? âŚ
But there is really just not enough raw material demonstrated as to your ability for anyone to say anything useful except âstart game designing, a lotâ.
Get your stuff in front of peopleâs faces, apply for jobs, and network. Already mentioned enough times here obviously. But I do have a comment on the below:
If youâre looking for a position at a larger studio, it is rare that one guy covers all this. The guy designing the game mechanics is almost never the guy who implements the networking, nor is the same guy writing compute shaders. The games are big enough that just 1 of these is a full time job, or even a team effort. You might increase your success by really focusing on the job you are looking for, and mention you can do more, but donât spend a lot of time going into everything else you can do.
Whenever you get anyoneâs attention, you are facing a very limited attention span. Spend your time showing you are right for the actual job you are looking for, and donât waste time trying to give people the full picture of all your abilities. If youâre going for game design, donât waste your time talking up your Photon knowledge, youâre just going to make them pass on you. Theyâve got a networking guy already for that part, and thatâs not what they are hiring a game designer for. Mention you have experience in these other areas, but donât spend your time talking about them unless they ask follow up questions in those areas, cause youâre sacrificing your time talking about how you are the right choice for the position you are applying for.
Game ideas? Sure. Concepts? Maybe. But I highly doubt that someone has 100 actual game designs done at that point, let alone 1000. Iâve worked with people formally trained in game design, and by the time they finish their trianing I think theyâre in the vicinity of 10 finished designs, some of which will have been team efforts.
They have many more concepts, and many many more ideas, but only a relatively small number get fleshed out to full designs. A professional level game design is a big chunk of work.
Despite that you raise a solid point. And to build on it, if itâs the design aspect that interests someone not only do I expect to see more than one design, I also expect to see documentation and discussion of it from a design perspective. So a GDD, and comments or notes about why it is the way it is, and the rationale behind key decisions.
Edit: This is why I asked before about what work they want to be doing and if âdesignâ is really the right term. It sounds more like programming to me.
Itâs war and nobody knows what they are doing. Everybody is just winging it.
You did some work so make sure people see it. If they arenât excited about it then it probably sucks. Do it again but a little better. Rinse, repeat.
As you keep finishing work start selling it whether you think it will sell or not. Every job offer Iâve got is related to somebody saw some lousy thing I had for sale online and wrote to me. Itâs usually better if people find you.
Doubtful youâll get a âdesignâ job right out the bat. Kind of a nebulous term but I think maybe OP expects to waltz into a studio and be telling people how the game is gonna work? Not going to happen for twenty years and if it does before then itâs probably a studio that hasnât been around long and wonât be.
Everybody starts from the bottom. If you donât like it that way you got to do your own thing, which is harder. If you insist on being the boss thatâs fine you can start making games today and do it however you please.
Youâre right, I meant more like those prototypes that you make when you have a fun idea and spend a few days to a week building a level to have fun with it. Something like a demonstration of one mechanic, like a minecraft blocks system or a Portal thing.
Good to have 1 or 2 full game prototypes, but that wasnât what I meant.
I guess my main point is, where is the demonstration of the OPâs energy expenditure so far into the activity they want to get hired for? Unless they expect to be taught on the job (which very few companies are interested in doing) they have to be able to show something, preferably a lot of it.
