We are all familiar with those little prayers towards Flash or Windows, not to crash during a furious session of coding, or to Photoshop, not to "die" on you when you're 5 minutes from finishing an intricate background and you forgot to save. But I'm not talking about these now because these magic words apply to all who work with any of these programs. I'm talking about a special set of words, a 5 word-sentence which is addressed to all those who aspire to be a games designer :
I am a games designer.
Reading Jesse Schell's article "In the Beginning There Is the Designer" I got to the conclusion that those words might just do the trick. They are the magic words of the real, elf-less, orc-less, hobbit-less world, words that give you confidence and make you look forward, and see the difficult path you have taken to, and then you loose confidence again, and then there come the magic words to lift you up and the whole circle goes on and on and on. I have a friend who always used to play this little game with herself. Every morning she used to encourage herself in the mirror before she came to school and every day she was radiating confidence.
In a games designer's portfolio one can find a HUGE amount of skills, because almost anything you can be good at, can become a useful skill for a games designer. Going from A to Z you get to go through: Animation, Anthorpology, Architecture, Business, Cinematography, Communication, Economics, History, Management, Math, Psychology, Sound Design, Visual Arts, and sooo many others.
Of course one person can't master them all, but you are good at at least one, and once you've mastered that, you can pass on to the next one and master that too. You have loads of time to practice any one you want, but whatever you choose it will still be a useful skill for a games designer. That's why, in the past 20ish years games started to be created in teams. This way more skills can be combined into a team and hopefully better games might be created. Now, from a 1 person team, games development has jumped to a 100 or more person teams.
But as we humans go, we like to deem something the most important thing, what would the most important skill for a games designer be? Of course, for the one naming it, it might be the one he's the most good at, or it might be the ones that pop in everybody's mind when they think of games designing. Skills like "creativity", "logic" "management" "organisation", "coding" or "visual arts" are the ones most commonly named.
But I have to agree with Jesse here and say that "Listening" is the most important ones. Listening to the team you're working with, listening to the audience, to the client, to the game and to yourself.
By listening I don't mean just hearing, but paying attention and take into account both voice and body language. And when you learn to listen like that then the message you might receive might be different from the one you would get just by hearing the message. When you listen thoughtfully you start to observe everything and constantly question yourself on your actions and thoughts.
And now, while you start and struggle to learn and master the skills that you believe will turn you into a good games designer, someone will come and tell you: "I already have everything I need to be a games designer because I've been born with the skill".
Here is where Jesse Schell comes in and explains that there are two kinds of gifts. The minor gift which is the innate gift, the one you are born with . If you have this gift it might be easy for you to design games, but you might not really enjoy it. Plus, if you don't keep working on it, it will fade away with time.
The major gift is the love you have for the work you do. If you have the love for the work you do , you will design games using whatever skills you have, no matter how limited your skills have. And you will keep doing it. And the work you do will get better and better. People who will look at what you did will think that you have the the innate gift, but you'll know that the games you did are the reflection of your love for the work you do.
But to find out which gift you have, you have to start working, start experimenting and start learning. See what works for you, pick up those skills that you think will help you and keep saying those magic words to build up the confidence that will carry you through.
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