Hi all, Before I go into exactly what I need advice on, I’ll give you some background to what I’m doing right now and how I got there. Since I was in high school I always knew that I wanted to work in the games industry; but like a lot of people I had no idea what it was I wanted to do. After doing my exams, it was time to decide what I wanted to do at college and since I was already pretty good with video editing, web design, graphic design etc - I decided to take a course in media moving image (which I really enjoyed). I managed to get myself three distinctions and was top of the class. So after realizing that I really wasn't any good at drawing and/or programming, I decided my best bet was to get some kind of design role. With this in mind, I applied to a bunch of uni's specializing in game design / development. Got a place at Staffordshire Uni and was really looking forward to what the future had in store for me. To cut a long story short, the course was rubbish. The lecturers had no industry experience, and the course was primarily aimed at people who wanted to get into the art side of the industry (it was a science degree as well *shrugs*). So as well as attending class (to make sure I didn't flunk the first year) I decided to purchase a bunch of books on game design theory. Boy oh boy did that teach me some useful things on how to design games. After speaking to several different people inside the industry, I decided I would quit my course after completing the first year, then try and land myself a QA position. After a few months of doing some grunt work at whatever I could find, I decided it was time to start applying at some games companies. I sent my CV out to every developer/publisher I could find within the UK, one of which happened to be Lionhead Studios (Fable, Black and White (2) and The Movies). After applying, within a few hours I had a phone call from the Testing Department at Lionhead saying they had an opening for a tester / database admin for 8 weeks. I jumped at the chance and, well that’s how I got into the industry. After working at Lionhead, I went to EA and then onto Codemasters. I've been at Codemasters now for 2 and a half months - and guess what. They have a design secondment coming up . Now - onto the advice I need. Basically, they require all applicants for the position to write a report on 'how you would improve the players experience on *insert game title here* (NDA)'. Basically, what I was wondering is this:What type of information do you think they will require? Now my first instinct is to write an in depth report on the core gameplay mechanics, and exactly how they could be improved upon. The problem with this being, we are limited to a certain amount of words. Do you think it would be best to try and add as many new design features that would improve gameplay or, work on a select few which I find the most important and go into great detail on how I would re-design them to increase the fun a user has while playing the game? I'm going to be working on this over the weekend, so if you could help me out that would be totally awesome. Cheers in advance. Kyle.

I'd suggest picking a few and refining them in new and interesting ways. Don't go overboard suggesting a thousand features or you'll scare them (too many ideas means not enough refinement, much of the time). Also, be sure not to spend much (if any) time explaining the current design unless it applies to the new ideas that you have. If you only have a limited number of words, explaining each of their systems before discussing your own spin on it would be a waste of space.

Really bad example:

"The current design allows the player to fly to any location in the game as soon as they get the Flying Blue Squirrel powerup. Instead, I would make a series of Flying Squirrels, each of a different color, that allow access to new areas."

They already know their design: first sentence, 24 wasted words.

This is exactly what I thought. I am glad that someone else agrees with me :).

Thanks for the quick response.

This is both obvious and elusive, so bear with me;

Were I to ask someone to offer an improvement for a game which I designed, I wouldn't want them to try to pander too much to what they think my idea of what the game is. What they propose should be an extension of what they enjoyed about the game. That is a much more positive design idea than proposing to fix a feature which you don't like, because maybe someone else really likes that and will propose an improvement to it that casts yours in shadow.

Pick something you like, and run somewhere where you want to go with it. If there is NOTHING you like about the game, you have a hard job :).

I would strongly suggest that you ask this question to Codemasters rather than doing what *we* think that Codemasters mean. In business it is always better to ask a question if you are not sure, rather than to go ahead and do the wrong thing. It is a good thing because it shows you are not embarassed about making sure you understood and that means you will make less errors.

I would say to your contact "I think you are asking me to do A but it might be B - can you confirm please".

They may well want new design ideas - or they may want you to focus on the game as it is an identify the areas that could have been improved. These are two subtly different questions and you don't want to answer the wrong one.

Hi

I would do that but the email clearly says:

'Please don't ask me questions on what is expected... the brief is clear and defines the scope of what is required.'

The exact question is this:

'What changes would you make to *insert game title here* to improve the playing experience?

The response should be no longer than 1,500 words be supplied as a word doc and at the candidates discretion can include diagrams or images.'

:)

I'm going to do what I originally planned, and just hope it's the right choice. :)

Just my opinion, but I think the question is asking you to:
- pick one game
- describe design features in the game that you feel could be improved upon
- explain why they are sub-optimal in terms of player experience
- and suggest changes to improve player experience (and why the changes would do that)