Hi guys.

I'm a programmer with lots of years of experience in the game industry. Since I've been working with designers during most of my career I thought that I knew a lot about game design but, as it turns out, I don't.

I started coding my own game a few years back with the sole purpose of keep learning and having fun while doing it, but I've reached a point where I think I could turn this game into a real product, so finding people who know their way around game design has become a priority for me. The problem is that I don't know where to start, and I don't feel comfortable sharing what I'm up to with my colleagues just yet.

All I have is a theme, a well defined setting and a core mechanic. The game content is procedurally generated (to a certain degree), while combat and exploration are two fundamental pillars of the gameplay.

If I wanted to build a design team (even if it's just a single person), what kind of designer should I try to get first? what other specialized design areas should I have covered? To what degree is it important that they love the game/genre?

I also got contacted by a writer who would love to work in the project but, do I need him yet? how do writers work with e.g gameplay designers? who feeds who?

Well, that's a lot of questions, but I'm genuinely lost.

Thanks in advance for your time ?

Hi, trapazza. I've moved your post to the Production/Management forum because you aren't asking how to design - you're asking how to manage team formation. And that is not a game design question.

So you have lots of years experience working in games, as a programmer. You must still know some game designers from that time. But you say you're not comfortable talking about your project with them - no wonder you're stymied.

To recruit people you need to talk to people. But that is much more difficult now because of the pandemic.

trapazza said:
what kind of designer should I try to get first?

What does your project need? If you need puzzles, you need a puzzle designer. If you have the main gameplay mechanic already figured out and working, then you need a game to wrap around it, and that means a “game designer”. If you just need the world to be built, then you need a level designer. Yes, the designer should be someone who would enjoy playing your game (not someone who would not play your game). If you have to ask “do I need a writer,” you do not need a writer.

Seems to me if you've been making your own game for a long time, you ought to know what genre it is, and what the core gameplay is. If you don't know these things, maybe what you've been making isn't so much a game as an engine. If you know what genre your game is, then you can talk about it in general terms to potential candidates, without giving away too many secrets. But what secrets are there really? It's unlikely that a game design candidate could take your idea and go off and make his own version of it without you.

@richardnoblitt , please don't necro. This thread is now closed to further replies.