Game design is a funny thing. There are people out there who are really good at it, but it's not clear that they can teach it. It's a very intuitive process. It's an art.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Games shouldn't only be fun. They should teach or spark an interest in other things.
I love games. I honestly can't imagine working with any other medium. I guess it would be akin to an artist who's doing commercial art and then goes into education, but it really frees you up to do all other kinds of creative stuff.
I've always wanted to get involved with designing a video game.
This is the entertainment industry, so game designers have to have a creative mind and also have to be able to stand up against the marketing people at their company - otherwise they cannot be creative. There are not that many people who fit that description.
The great thing about games is that it's tremendously collaborative, and it opens you up to this other world of thinking and storytelling and how you construct those stories.
Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.
Keep it simple, stupid. Good game design shouldn't keep you looking at the manual but should have enough depth where you feel like you bring something new to the game every time you play.
Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although there was no such thing when I was growing up. I built a Tic-Tac-Toe playing machine in my teens which went up in smoke on the night it was scheduled to go to a science fair.
I don't think you can be taught how to make art. You can be coached, but on a fundamental level you have to figure it out for yourself. You have to learn how your own mind works, figure out your own relationship to the art; you essentially have to invent it completely for yourself.
The way games are designed is you create a story, and then you create an obstacle course inside that story, and the player has to endure it to see more. So it's artificial. Game designers are so intensely worried about people getting bored that they pile on busy work for players to do.