I've been programming on and off for about 2 years now, 1 year of game programming and 6 months of DirectX programming. I'm quite uncertain if I'll ever be a decent (i.e. professional) game programmer because I'm very bad with maths and my intrest for game programming isn't as big as it should be. However, I love to design games, come up with new ideas and find new approaches of problems. If I were to work as a game designer (pure theoretical design, no programming or artwork), do I have to start in the industry as a programmer or artist or can I just get a job as a designer directly? Of course with the proper knowledge and/or education needed. Please, no "I think so..." answers, just answers from people that knows this for a fact. ============================ Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design "I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown Edited by - Spiff on 4/4/00 9:08:00 AM

As far as I know you can start as a game designer.
In fact you''ll probably begin to be a level designer.
On my side I would like to be Game Designer and Story writter, but it seems that those are two different job.
(Maybe it''s why so many games have no/bad story ?)

my 2 cents

-* Sounds, music and story makes the difference between good and great games *-

Hi,
getting a job directly as a game-designer without having ever programmed some projects is hard. The reason is, that the game-designer is possibly the most important person in the development team, so that''s completely understandable.

I just know it from Germany, but there are really few companies looking for game-designers, because often all positions are filled or some lead-level-designers do the job, since a game-designer costs much money. I just remember one job offer from a german company for a designer without previous experience being necessary.

CU

Graphix Coding @
Skullpture Entertainment
http://www.skullpture.de

I would say the non-programmer path to game designer is via the Quality Assurance (QA) department.

Get a job as a tester for a publisher or development house. Leverage that to move up to level designer, then target game designer. There are several levels of each, so don''t go thinking you''ll hit game designer without several years worth of experience doing lots of different things.


DavidRM
Samu Games

"so don't go thinking you'll hit game designer without several years worth of experience doing lots of different things." - that's just what I thought too.

Good tip about the QA departments, it's probably the best way to go. The question is what they require from you if you want to get a job there.

The fact that I have some programming and design experience, web design experience and quite a lot of "gaming" experience, maybe it isn't that hard. The bad thing is, how many distributors are there in Sweden?

I got this idea from reading some "one day at work with..." article from someone that was kind of a designer/development coordinator, it sounded really interesting.

============================
Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown

Edited by - Spiff on 4/5/00 1:07:04 AM

Bear in mind that a designer with some programming knowledge will nearly always be better than one who has none. Designers who aren''t familiar with the programming side may make unreasonable demands of the game engine or programmers. Or may be less able to communicate an idea in a way a programmer can understand. So by all means, go for being a designer, but don''t give up on the programming side totally as you''d do best by keeping up with current algorithms, hardware features, and programming trends.

Yep, well said Kylotan. I''ve always got a big intrest for learning things and when I got my eyes on the game development market, I started reading everything from 2D and 3D programming to design related articles and tutorials.
And since you kind of decide what the game will be like, you have to know if it''s technically duable, or you can''t do your job.

The more "handy-man" you are, the easier it''ll be to get a job.

============================
Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown