Game Design Angles: How To Become A Designer

 Game design is an incredibly exciting creative industry that ties together many different disciplines, including graphical design, audio engineering and coding. Audio specialists in particular have one of the more lucrative positions in the industry, with sound designers earning $51k on average for using systems like MIDI to create epic soundtracks and sound effects. Game designers like John Romero and Gabe Newell have gone on to become genuine celebrities.

It’s not all about cash, of course, and game design is a fantastic vocation that gives near limitless avenues for creative and technical minds. You’ll find yourself working with cutting-edge stuff, whether that’s the latest graphics engine or art direction, or bespoke computer-led sound systems. So – how can you get into game design? What skills do you need, and how do you apply them?

Qualifications

Before you look down what skills you might have to offer to the games design industry, you need to consider how you’ll find exposure.

There are generally two major ways to get into the game design industry. You can become part of an indie studio, or design on your own (if you’re a jack of all trades) and work hard via platforms like Steam to grab the attention of consumers. You can also use services like DeviantArt to attract admirers of your work, or SoundCloud for audio work. The other, more straightforward route is to opt for college education. There are a range of colleges for game design. Some will take on students on an all-rounder education style, whilst others will be hoping to see students with a specific specialization.

Creative Arts

Every game design studio needs high quality creative workers, usually working under production staff or creative leads. What this means is people who have a good imagination and the skills to be able to illustrate, digitally or not, their ideas. This can also mean being able to properly vocalize what they’re imagining, through pitches to the lead designers or written prompts.

Remember, too, that creative design is a transferable skill that finds value in many different markets.

Audio Designers

Audio designers can come in various formats. There are engineers, who are often employed to work with MIDI interfaces to micro-engineer in important aspects of the overall audio design, such as equalizer optimization and balancing. There are audio designers, too, employed to creatively design new sounds and music for the product. Like creative art, the key here is thinking outside of the box. To take an example from film, did you know the famous TIE fighter engine noise from Star Wars was made by combining an elephant’s call and a car driving on wet pavement?

Programmers

The framework behind every game and the creative design put into it is the coding and framework, used by the engine that the developer has chosen. Computer developing is an incredibly varied and wide-ranging profession that you can find numerous opportunities in and game design is a lucrative and creatively minded one.

Game design is a fantastic profession, full of creativity and the remit to really think outside of the box to create new titles. With lucrative earnings and the ability to tackle the latest technology, it’s a way of staying ahead of the times. If you’re dedicated, you could be a game designer.