Chapter 1: The Role of the Game Designer

---

Overview

The game designer envisions how a game will work during play. She creates the objectives, rules, and procedures, thinks up the dramatic premise and gives it life, and is responsible for planning everything necessary to create a compelling player experience. In the same way that an architect drafts a blueprint for a building or a screenwriter produces the script for a movie, the game designer plans the structural elements of a system that, when set in motion by the players, creates the interactive experience.

As the impact of digital games has increased, there has been an explosion of interest in game design as a career. Now, instead of looking to Hollywood and dreaming of writing the next blockbuster, many creative people are turning to games as a new form of expression.

But what does it take to be a game designer? What kinds of talents and skills do you need? And what is the best method of designing for a game? In this chapter, we'll look at the answers to these questions and outline a method of iterative design that designers can use to judge the success of gameplay throughout the design and development process. This iterative method, which relies on inviting feedback from players early on, is the key to designing games that delight and engage the audience, because the game mechanics are developed from the ground up with the player experience at the center of the process.

---