Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Aesthetic Competence
Although you need not be an artist, you should have a general aesthetic compe-
tence and some sense of style. Far too many games are visual clones of one another,
depending on stereotypes and clichés rather than real imagination. It's up to you
(along with your lead artist) to set the visual tone of the game and to create a con-
sistent, harmonious look.
Expand your aesthetic horizons as much as you can. Learn a little about the funda-
mentals of art: the principles of composition, and which colors coordinate and
which clash. Find out about famous art movements—Art Nouveau, Surrealism,
Impressionism—and how they changed the way we see things. Watch movies that
are famous for their visual style, such as
Metropolis
or
Blade Runner.
Then move on
to the more practical arts: architecture, interior decoration, industrial design. The
more aesthetic experience you have, the more likely you are to produce an artisti-
cally innovative product.
General Knowledge and the Ability to Research
The most imaginative game designers are those who have been broadly educated
and are interested in a wide variety of things. It helps to be well versed in such top-
ics as history, literature, art, science, and political affairs. More important, you
must know how to research the subject of your game. It's tempting just to use a
search engine on the Internet, but that's not very efficient because the information
it presents is haphazard and disorganized and might not be reliable. The encyclope-
dia is a better place to start for any given subject. From there, you can increase your
knowledge of a particular area by moving on to more specialized topics or TV
documentaries.
Writing Skills
A professional game designer actually spends most of his time writing, so a designer
must
have good writing skills. This means being clear, concise, accurate, and unam-
biguous. Apart from having to write several detailed documents for each design,
you might be expected to produce the story narrative or dialog—especially if the
budget won't stretch to include a scriptwriter.
Design writing comes in several forms:
■
Technical writing
is the process of documenting the design in preparation for
development. The essential mechanisms of the game have to be answered unam-
biguously and precisely.
■
Fiction writing
(narrative) creates the story of the game as a whole—a critical
part of the design process if the game has a strong storyline. Some of this material
may appear in the finished product as text or voiceover narration. The game's man-
ual, if there is one, often includes fictional material as well.
