作者：Brian Green

让我们从最基本的概念入手：何为游戏设计师？

沟通者

设计师的首要职责是沟通。这意味着你需要习惯进行大量的编写、会议和说明活动。没错，你的理念实际上要位居解释这些理念的主焦点之后。拥有平庸想法和强大沟通技巧的设计师总好过拥有很棒想法，但毫无沟通能力的设计师。

为何沟通如此重要？如果设计师无法表达自己的想法，那么这些想法就只能受困于自己的大脑。没有优秀的设计，执行者就很难协调和策划一个项目。设计师还要能够说明执行者可能没有考虑到的细节。

game designer(from www.aodt.ca)

并不只是创意人员

那么创意又是什么？多数心怀抱负的游戏设计师总会失望地发现，他们并非项目中的“创意人员”。事实上，游戏项目的方向通常早已由他人确定（游戏邦注：有可能是主设计师），由高管来批准（有时候他们只会批准自己带有缺陷的创意），并在高层会议上充实想法，然后将其移交给主设计师，再由后者分配给初级设计师。不过你还是有机会发挥自己的创意，但未必能够为项目提出颠覆性的建议，并直接选择团队将制作哪种游戏。你可能会接手整个项目中的一小部分工作。但这仍然是种有趣的差事，你应该抓住这一机会在工作中掌握更多经验。

还要注意，多数新设计师会参与“二级”项目。这些游戏包括移植版本、续作以及其他并不如全新高端品牌那样有趣的游戏。但你总需要一个起点。在你获得经验并晋升至更高级的岗位后，一般就有机会参与更高端的游戏，获得更多创意自由，但未必能够主导创意大权。即使是主设计师也难免看到许多关于核心玩法的细节受到限制。那么，设计师如果不是“创意人员”又是什么呢？

组织者

设计师，尤其是主设计师的主要职责之一就是组织管理。主设计师要统筹大家在项目启动前提出的不同想法。他们必须考虑这些不同系统如何共同运行，并将其统筹到一系列文件中。主设计师还要评估所有人的想法，并根据经验提供反馈，尤其是那些与网络相关的层面。主设计师还要为创意总监、执行制作人以及其他设计师组织评审和执行文件。在做完所有的统筹工作之后，主设计师仍需要同其他设计师一起处理文件中的一些细节。最终的设计文件将移交给执行者制作初期版本和游戏原型。

优秀的统筹工作可以让设计过程更为协调。例如，除了一般的任务系统之外，游戏中可能还有个普遍的进步系统。设计师应该要能够指出一些无法令其共同运行的概念（游戏邦注：比如进步系统要求玩家每小时获得X经验，但任务系统每小时提供的却是Y经验）。了解这些系统的优秀组织技巧有利于产生这些反馈。

调查者

涉及创意层面的工作，设计师要能够评估和具体化已经存在的理念。例如，游戏包括RPG式战斗元素，设计师就要评估这些理念的可行性。如果这些理念不可行，他们就必须向管理层提出问题，甚至可能还要提出令其可行的想法。如果该理念具有可行性，设计团队就需要补充细节。这该怎么做呢？调查研究！

设计师最有用的技能之一就是知道如何查找信息。在这个年代，这意味着知道如何合用搜索引擎，在线百科全书，维基百科，当然，你还需要足够的基础知识来了解自己究竟需要哪些准确的信息。但是，也不要回避去自己所在地的旧式实体图书馆找资料。

这还意味着拥有关于其他游戏的广博知识，这意味着玩大量游戏！你应该玩某种类型的主流游戏，以及一些“偏门”游戏，并在你的项目范围之外的类型中挑选和体验一些游戏。对其他类型游戏的了解可以让你获得解决自己所遇到设计问题的灵感。只是要避免在未了解设计选择的情况下，复制他人游戏系统的情况。如果你不喜欢阅读一页页的信息，整合给他们看的数据，以及玩游戏，就不要当游戏设计师了。

万事通

现在我们已经知道了设计师的总体职责，那么他们每天的日常工作又是什么呢？这更难以定义，因为这要取决于多方因素，包括项目，设计师和组织。不幸的是，行业并没有关于游戏设计师标准化的职称或岗位描述。所以不同公司的游戏设计师可能就会有不同的特殊头衔。“系统设计师”的技能要求是擅长数学。关卡布置设计师则更看重与视觉相关的知识。注意有些公司可能会要求“设计师”掌握许多不同的学科。

鉴于许多设计师是来自其他领域的情况，人们通常将设计师视为万事通。拥有美术背景的设计师可能会分配到开发用户界面，或者与美术主管一起开发色彩方案的工作。拥有编程思维的设计师可能会钻研和帮助执行脚本系统。但是，真正出色的设计师应该至少拥有涉及游戏开发各个层面的设计工作。即使设计师不会绘制详细的图案或制作3D模型，了解这些任务如何执行，也有助于他们表达自己的想法。许多设计师来自QA部门，这也会对其所面临的工作发挥作用。另外，知晓如何编写测试方案也可确保设计获得充分测试。

除此之外，了解不同的游戏开发区域也有助于顺利推进项目。我听说过许多关于无编程能力的设计师，制作出无法在一定时间内执行的设计方案的故事。胸怀抱负的设计师应该参与到游戏开发的各个方面，以便确保自己的设计真正具有可行性。

总结

如果你想成为出色的设计师，就需要掌握多种技能。这也是为何我们难以撰写出描述设计师角色的文章的原因之一，以及传统大学为何难以推出游戏设计课程的原因。另一方面，我们也确实很难获得培养设计师的资源，这也是我们为何需要自学游戏设计的原因，我们真的很难通过其他途径培养这些技能。

原文发表于2012年10月14日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准。（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 is a Game Designer?

In this article, MMO developer Brian Green explains what exactly a game designer does in an organization and why a variety of skills is required for game design.

So, let’s start with the basics: What is a game designer?

A Communicator

The primary job of a designer is communication. This means you need to get used to doing a lot of writing, meeting, and explaining. Really, your ideas are actually secondary to the main focus of explaining those ideas. A designer with mediocre ideas and great communication skills is better than a designer with super ideas and no communication skills.

Why is communication so important? If the designer cannot communicate their ideas, then those ideas are stuck in his or her head. Without good design, it is harder for implementers to coordinate and plan the project. The designer should also be able to identify details that the implementers might not consider.

Not Really the Idea Person

So, what about ideas? Most aspiring game designers are disappointed to learn that they won’t get to be the “idea person” on a project. In fact, the direction of game project is usually already established by someone (maybe a senior designer), approved by executives (sometimes approving his or her own flawed idea), fleshed out in high level meetings, then passed down from the lead designer to a junior designer. Note that you will still have a chance to be creative, but you won’t necessarily be suggesting sweeping changes and directly choosing which games will be made. You will probably be working on a smaller portion of the whole project. This is still an interesting job, however, and you should take the opportunity to learn as much as you can while doing your work.

Also note that most new designers are going to be working on the “second tier” type projects. These games include ports, sequels, and other games that aren’t going to be as interesting to work on as the hot new high-profile brand. But, you have to start somewhere. As you gain experience and work into higher positions, you will generally be able to work on higher profile games and get more creative freedom, but will not necessarily call the creative shots. Even a lead designer will see many of the details about the core gameplay already decided for them. So, what does a designer do if he or she is not the “idea guy”?

An Organizer

One major responsibility of a designer, particularly a lead designer, is organization. A lead designer organizes the different thoughts that everyone has come up with prior to starting on the project. He or she has to consider how these different systems work together and organize them into a series of documents. The lead designer also evaluates all the ideas and offer feedback based on my experience, particularly the parts dealing with online-specific aspects. The lead designer will also organize documents for the Creative Director, Executive Producer, and other designers to review and work on. After all this organization, the lead designer will still have to work on the details of some of the documents themselves along with the other designers. Eventually the design documents will be handed to the implementers to make early versions and prototypes of the game.

Good organization makes it easier to collaborate on the design. For example, there may be the design for a general advancement system in place in addition to a general quest system. A designer should be able to point out that some concept prevents them from working together, or that the advancement system expects players to gain X experience per hour, but that the quest system states it will provide Y per hour. Good organization skills to understand the systems are what make this feedback possible.

A Researcher

When it comes to the creative part of the job, a designer has to evaluate and flesh out ideas already presented. If the game contains RPG-style combat, for example, a designer needs to evaluate ideas for viability. If the ideas are not feasible, he or she must bring up these issues to managers and perhaps even suggest a way to alter the idea to make it possible. Once the idea is determined feasible, the design team needs to fill in details. How do you do this? Research!

One of the most useful skills a designer can have is knowing how to find information. In this day and age, that means knowing how to use search engines, online encyclopedias, and wikis; of course, you need enough basic knowledge to know how accurate the information you find really is. However, don’t be afraid to go to the old-fashioned physical library in your town as well.

It also means having an extensive knowledge of other games, and that means playing lots of games! You should play major games in the genre as well as a few offbeat ones and a good selection outside your project’s genre. Having a grasp on other genres can help give you inspiration for design problems you will encounter. Just be careful not to fall into the trap of trying to copy existing systems wholesale without understanding the design choices that went into that work.

If you don’t enjoy reading pages and pages information, synthesizing data to present to other people, and playing games, do not become a game designer.

A Jack-of-all-trades

Okay, so now we know in general what a designer should do, what does a designer do on a day to day basis? Well, this is harder to define because it depends on many factors, including the project, the designer, and the organization. Unfortunately, the industry really doesn’t have standardized titles or job descriptions. So, you get a lot of specialized titles that may mean different things at different companies. The skills required for a “systems designer” (which is my strength) are very focused on math. A level layout designer (which I am hopelessly terrible at), on the other hand, should be much more visually-orientated and able to visualize things easily in his or her head. Note that some companies might expect a “designer” to encompass many different disciplines.

It’s not unusually to think of a designer as a jack-of-all-trades, especially as many designers have worked into a design position from another discipline. A designer with an art background might be assigned to develop the user interface, or work closely with the Art Lead to develop color schemes. Designers with a mind for programming might dig into the scripting system and help with implementation. However, a truly great designer should have at least a working knowledge of every aspect of game development. Even if the designer can’t draw detailed pictures or make a 3D model, knowing how these tasks are done can help them communicate their ideas. Many designers also come form the QA department; this can be very beneficial if the individual had exposure to multiple elements of the game. And, knowing how to write test plans can help make sure that a design can be adequately tested.

In addition, knowing the different areas of game development helps keep the project possible. I’ve heard numerous stories about designers with no programming ability making designs that cannot possibly be implemented within a reasonable amount of time. Aspiring designers should get involved in multiple aspects of game development in order to make sure their designs are actually possible.

Putting it all together

If you want to be a great designer, you will need a variety of skills. This is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to really write an exact description of what a designer is, and why it can be very difficult to teach game design in a traditional structured setting of university classes. On the other hand, it’s hard to have the resources to train someone on the job. Which is why it’s important to be self-motivated to learn all you can about game design, because it can be hard if not impossible to learn any other way.（source：gamedesignaspect）