许多人都不知道游戏设计师的工作职责究竟是什么，甚至连身处游戏行业的一些人也对此颇为困惑。下面是我们对游戏设计师工作性质的简要描述：

通过头脑风暴萌生创意

游戏创意就像是幼年鲑鱼，每千个鱼卵才有可能成功孵出一小撮幼鱼。即使是敲定了游戏基本概念，设计师也仍然需要针对许多细节问题提出新想法和巧妙的解决方案。头脑风暴（游戏邦注：又称构思过程）是一种可通过实践获得发展的技能。

管理项目

制作人经常会为设计师设定一些指标。这意味着设计师需要在一定时限内提交许多可行的游戏内容。设计师的职责就是找到让项目达标的方法，与设计团队针对这些经常变动的目标进行交流，并向自己的上级汇报项目进展。此外，设计师还需要与程序员、美工、文案沟通项目情况，最重要的内容就是：撰写项目报告、发送最新邮件，开展项目会议。

becoming-a-video-game-designer(from gamedesignersalary.org)

编写设计文件

设计文件是可让制作人员、程序员和美工落实和执行的游戏描述内容。它详细说明了游戏胜利条件、主要环节、机制、所有单位及其状态值、关卡图表、新手教程、玩家可探索的所有领域、游戏项目的经济和技术问题等内容。简短的设计文件可能只有20多页，而极为详尽的文件篇幅页数可能多达200页。

创造系统机制

游戏中最有趣的内容是什么？向坏蛋开火还是跳磨菇？设计师的职责就是发明和完善玩家在游戏中的整个操作系统，他们可通过编写描述文件，与其他设计师交流，创建并打造系统，然后经过多次迭代以完成这项工作。

创造内容

除了游戏系统之外，设计师还要考虑游戏中的怪兽攻击点数、游戏主角的故事情节、关键对话、反派角色、每个关卡的挑战和游戏布局等内容；为每个角色分配相关操作行为、特征描述和状态值，设置游戏中的动物、地点和对象等大量工作。这也正是为何游戏设计师都必须是聪慧灵活之人的原因。

测试和调整玩法

许多游戏都要折腾一番功夫才能实现玩法的平衡。设计师需要确保无论玩家选择哪种致胜策略，他们都能获得有趣而公平的体验。只要玩家选择的每个策略都有公平获胜的机会，那么其游戏机制就是平衡的。假如某个策略优于其他对策，那么对玩家来说，该游戏就不存在所谓的有趣策略。设计师需想法打破这种失衡状态。

执行测试

让游戏不走岔道的一个重要环节就是测试。首先是自己先试玩游戏，然后再将其展现给测试玩家。你可以让他们在一个设置了单向镜子的房间中玩游戏，观察他们的操作情况。或者借助集中测试小组的帮助，在他们试玩游戏之后，亲自与之讨论他们在游戏中的喜爱与讨厌之物。Beta测试就是指让许多玩家试玩游戏，然后向设计师发送评论和漏洞报告的情况。

保证游戏的趣味性

设计师的最终职责是确保终端用户获得良好的娱乐体验。但设计师在这一点上采取的具体做法因人而异，就像电影导演拍出一部好片的方式也各有千秋，设计师在此扮演的就是游戏玩法体验的导演角色。

非游戏设计师的工作职责：

编写代码

许多优秀设计师同时也是出色的程序员，但这并非他们的工作内容。关于这个问题，业内也存在一些争议，但大家普遍认为最好是聘请一个杰出的设计师以及一名优秀的程序员，而不是同时招聘两名兼具这两种技能的人员。

美术设计

游戏设计师常与美工、美术设计师和美术总监密切合作，但他们并不需要亲自制作美术内容。

创意文案

假如设计方案中涉及大量世界发展观、对话和深度文字内容，制作人一般都会雇佣一名自由写手或者一个文案团队担起这项任务。

音乐、音效和配音

设计师一般不需要负责此事，不过也有些例外情况。

管理整个项目

制作人或项目经理才是确保美术团队、编程团队、设计团队和营销团队密切配合，并且按时交付任务的主事者。制作人通常会做大量关于游戏设计的工作，但设计师关注的主要是内容，而不是管理项目开发。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

What Does a Game Designer Do? Lots of people don’t really know what a game designer does – even people in the games business! Here’s a simple explanation.

Brainstorm Ideas

Game ideas are like baby salmon. For every thousand hatched, only a few grow up. Even after a game’s basic concepts are decided there are lots of little problems that need ideas and clever solutions. Brainstorming, sometimes called ideation, is very much a skill that one can develop with practice.

Manage the Project

A producer will usually give the designer milestones to hit. This means he or she needs to have various features of the game working by a certain date. It’s the designer’s job to plan how to reach these goals, communicate the (often changing) goals to the design team, and communicate progress to those above him. The designer also needs to communicate closely with programmers, artists, and writers. The bottom line: write progress reports, send update emails, and have milestone meetings.

Write Design Documents

A design document is the written description of the game that the producers, programmers, and artists will execute. It details how to win, what the main parts of the game are, the mechanics, all the units, their stats, level charts, all the places one can go in the game world, the tutorial, and often business and technological issues. A brief design document might be twenty pages, while a very detailed one could be two hundred pages.

Create System Mechanics

What’s the central fun thing you do in your game? Shoot bad guys? Jump on mushrooms? It’s the designer’s job to invent and polish the entire system of actions a player can take in the game. You do this by writing descriptions, discussing them with other designers, building them, trying them out, and modifying them over many iterations.

Create Content

Okay, your team has a game system built. Now how many hit points does each monster have? What is the storyline of the main character? What’s the key dialog? Who’s the villain? What are the layouts and challenges of each level? Assigning a strategic role, behaviors, descriptions, and stats to every character, creature, location, and object in the game can be a monumental task. That’s why game designers like you have to be so damn smart.

Playtest and Adjust

It takes a long time to get the game play balance right on most games. A designer needs to be sure that no matter what strategy a player chooses to win, their choice is fun and fair. As long as every strategy has an equal chance to win, the game is balanced. If it turns out that a certain strategy is just better than the others, then there is no interesting strategic choice for the player. This kind of imbalance is called a ‘broken’ strategy and it’s up to the designer to fix it.

Conduct Testing

A big part of getting your game right is testing it. First you play it a bunch yourself. Then you put it in front of users. You can put them in a room with a one-way mirror and watch what they do with your game. Or you can have focus groups, in which players try a game and then have an in-person discussion about what they liked and didn’t like. Beta testing is when lots of players try the game and then send comments and bug reports to the designers.

Make Sure the Game is Fun

Ultimately, the designer’s job is to ensure the end user has a satisfying entertainment experience. Exactly how the designer does this varies a lot and is hard to list, just as it’s hard to list all the things a movie director does to craft a great film. The designer acts as the director of the game play experience.

Play, Learn, and Read About Games

A game designer is, above all, a games expert. As a designer you are expected to know more about game play and the end user experience than anyone else. You need to play a bunch of games to understand what makes them tick, what players like, and what your competitors are up to. You need to read fan sites and forum posts, as well as go to industry events. The point of all this is to build up an internal library of game mechanics and solutions so that when you encounter a problem your mind can grab the right tool immediately.

Things Game Designers Don’t (Usually) Do

Write Code

Many good designers are also programmers but it’s usually not in their job description. There is some debate here, but it’s commonly thought better to have a excellent designer and and excellent programmer rather than two people who are okay at both.

Create Visuals

Game designers may work closely with artists, graphic designers, and art directors. But they don’t create the visuals themselves.

Creative Writing

If there’s a lot of world development, dialogue, and in-depth story content, the producer will often hire this out to freelancers or a writing team.

Sound, Music, and Voice Acting

There are exceptions of course, but usually designers aren’t in charge of this.

Managing the Entire Project

It’s the job of the producer or project manager to make sure the art team, engineering team, game design team, and marketing team are all coordinating their efforts and handing in their work on time. Producers often do a lot of game design work, but the designer is ultimately focused on content as opposed to production management.（source: thegamedesignguild）