作者：Michel Sabbagh

最近Laralyn McWilliams发布了自己作为游戏产业中的资深人士对于游戏开发的个人想法与建议。我发现对于所有开发者来说，她的博文都是非常有远见且具有帮助性的，我也希望能够在此分享我作为不同年龄层群体中的一员所学到的一些东西。

不仅如此我还想分享自己在一个多月的假期中所获取的关于游戏开发性质的想法，这将包含去回顾我在2015和2016年后半年所获取的所有成就。

我将基于自己作为游戏设计师与作家所获取的相对较短但也非常重要的经验去列出15个建议。大多数建议都是来自我每天所发的Tweet中，它们也没有任何特别的排列顺序。

Game-Design(from gamasutra)

1.在空闲时间创建自己的作品集和履历。如果你是一名想要进入游戏产业的学生，那就努力留出些时间去致力于那些自己真正感兴趣的东西。可以是编写游戏设计文件和文章，也可以是绘制角色肖像和风景。不要只是依赖于课堂作业去练习，因为这会大大抑制你去培养自己的首创精神的能力。相反地你应该利用从同学，教授或其他开发者那学到的一切并通过一些你认为只有自己能够创造的项目去寻找自己的存在感。

2.频繁与其他游戏开发者交流。除了拥有一大串个人作品外，你还必须拥有与那些愿意分享自己的想法的人联系的工具，因为这种联系将让充满抱负的游戏开发者长期受益。关于交流，我指的不仅是前往游戏大会与那些你所欣赏的人接触。同时你还需要前往LinkedIn和Twitter与Facebook等社交媒体网站同相同领域的人交流并加入像IGDA等群组。如果你的社交网络越大且越密集，你的作品便更有可能吸引世界各地的游戏开发商的注意。

3.在创造作品的同时也积极去寻求机遇，不要傻傻地等着它们找上门。如果说我在大学中学到了什么，那便是我们够创造的最棒的努力即我们通过各种手段所获取的，例如浏览网页或聆听别人所说。不要太计较佣金，将自己的想法发送给那些需要自由职业者的媒体，寻找并参与游戏jam去培养自己的设计技能。不管你做什么，你都需要去留意任何能让你创造一些可以让世界所看到的内容的活动，请求或比赛。关于自信亦是如此，这是你在致力于某些内容时自然而然所产生的。如果你只想等着它自己找上门，你便会错失那些为世界创造全新作品的机会。所以不管何时只要你看到机遇之窗就要去牢牢把握住它。这不仅能够提高你的自信，同时也能提高你的创造能力。

4.维持工作与生活的平衡。三言两语道不清这一做法的重要性，但这却是经常被人们所忽视的重要原则。尽管创造自己想要创造的东西的动力与获得声誉的压力可能会推动你去发挥自己最大的潜能，但还是需要花些时间去反复“充电”。不管何时你都不应该过度劳累工作。这不仅会消耗你的能量与能力导致你难以正常工作，同时也会让你产生孤独感与抑郁症，而这便是扼杀人们想象力的最大凶手。你需要保持生产力，但必须足够健康有效。你大可去看电影，玩游戏，读书或与家人待一起。抽时间出去散散步。这将对你非常有帮助并让你能够更轻松地想出一些新理念。

5.养成广泛去研究自己作品的习惯。我们总是倾向于去接受已经存在的内容，并且我们也都希望能够创造出一些足够特别能够让自己以及整个世界惊艳的内容。所以研究便是创造性诞生的最佳工具，它能为你的灵感收集大量数据并扩展一些资源。如果你能够创造出不同于现有游戏的体验，你便能够吸引人们的注意。就像前Monolith Productions的前开发者Craig Hubbard所说的：“创造性是一个重组体，如果设计师能够获得更多灵感，他们便更有可能基于不同视角去创造游戏。”

6.从用户那征求具有建设性的反馈并尊重他们的想法。在永恒的追求自我完善的道路上，我们必须始终了解市场能够提供什么与需要什么。反馈是确保项目和内容能够适应人们的喜好与需求的终极模组、不管是否要在视觉小说中添加对话或者让图像呈现暖色调还是冷色调，寻求反馈并考虑人们的喜好都能帮助你成为更优秀的游戏开发者。千万不要陷入自我的陷阱中。拒绝并否定别人的评价大错特错，这不仅会阻止你去克服创造性障碍，也会导致你丧失能够变成更优秀设计师和社会人士的基本设计与生活经验教训。认真听取别人对你的作品的评价，尊重他们的意见，并整合反馈去更好地完善自己的作品。

7.失败更快。或许这听起来有点奇怪，但失败的确是不断自我完善的一种重要方法。具有创意的人才总是能从自己的错误中获得学习并以失败为跳板去创造全新作品。实际上，失败能够推动人们去学习，而更快速的学习方式便是更有效地去学习。如果当你在做某事时你觉得自己犯错了，那就认真去观察自己的做法并明确是否真的如此。不管是你在画画时感觉不对还是对话设置听起来不够自然，尽早发现错误都能让你更好地避开之后的问题并更有效地处理那些潜在的障碍。

8.如果缺少强大的职业道德，才能本身便毫无意义。我们天生都拥有某种才能，可能是写作，画画，编程，音频等等。也就是说才能就像需要有新鲜食物填充的冰箱：如果你不能保证它的有效运行（游戏邦注：如不能频繁练习你的能力），结果终将会体现在你的作品的质量上。每天都去练习画画，写作，编程或设计以更好地完善自己的这些技能将能确保你的作品的长期运行。

9.在自己的领域中尝试各种不同的努力方式。多样性就是生活的调味料。比起将自己局限于一种特定的写作/绘画/编程方式，你应该跳脱一般的创造性去尝试各种不同的努力。就拿我来说吧，作为一名作家，我有时候会创造对话脚本，游戏设计文件，或角色信息去补充我在自己的博客与Gamasutra上的一些游戏设计文章。因为你永远都不知道自己是否会擅长某一领域中的其它部分，所以最好能够多去尝试看看，这将使你变成一位更加多才多艺的开发者。

10.不要以成功目标，让一切顺其自然。如果说过去带给了你什么启示，那便是在你最不抱有期待的时候你的作品便会自然而然地问世。Viktor Frankl曾经说过，如果你总是以成功为目标，你便更有可能错失它。如果你开始致力于某种基于表面的目标或满足感（例如奖励，奖杯或关注之类），即将注意力从作品中转移，你便会开始感到急迫并不能有效投入于作品创造中。所以你应该享受于创造过程，不要担心它的结果。成功总是自然而然发生的，并且在你最意想不到的时候悄悄走向你。

11.频繁地与其他人分享你的作品。拥有一系列让自己骄傲的优秀作品固然是好事，但你也必须让别人注意到你所引以为傲的这些内容。比起自顾自地创造，你应该向全世界分享你所创造的内容（不管是通过社交媒体，大会还是游戏网站）。人们都很希望看到来自开发者所创造的内容，不管那是年轻的开发者还是资深开发者，因为这能够激励他们去做同样的事，如果能够保持创造性与洞察力分享齿轮的不断转动，这对于其他富有才能的人和游戏开发社区来说都会是一件好事。

12.做长远的游戏计划。浏览像《福布斯》30 Under 30榜单并听到一些已经获得成功的年轻人的新闻会激励你更努力地工作。但是虽然有部分人在自己年轻的时候便获得了成功，但却有无数人都不能做到这点。不过即使你暂时不能获得成功的话，你也要清楚你的生活不会止步于30岁。所以你应该好好利用接下来的时间去完善自己作为游戏开发者的技能。像Leonardo da Vinci，Victor Hugo和Harrison Ford等人在获得广泛认识之前都等待了很长很长的一段时间。

13.扩展你的兴趣和影响力，并关注于一些微小的细节。作为开发者，我们总是会只因为可能影响我们努力的灵感来源去看待游戏。这将大大限制你的世界观并导致你不能创造出跳脱游戏媒体以外的东西。尝试并了解最新游戏则能让你时刻了解最新趋势并明确如何去填充自己的创造性品牌。而着眼于像电影，文学和音乐等其它艺术形式则能让你想出一些在过去从未有人尝试过的全新理念，这也将大大提高你的作品的吸引力。而你个人的经历与生活阅历也很重要。此外，拥有丰富的阅历也能帮助你在作品中整合一些特殊细节，如直接/间接参考特定活动和人物之类。这能为你的创造添加不同的味道并能够吸引那些想要挖掘隐藏含义的人的注意。

14.在日记或其它地方写下灵感和其它有趣的信息。在我们的世界中，理念是永无止境的，但是我们的大脑却只能短暂处理并记住部分内容。所以不管是来自梦中，对话中还是大型活动中，任何我们在日常生活中所经历的都可以作为我们创作的基础。保持做记录或使用其它信息储存方式去记录你的想法并将其转换成游戏理念和机制是避免创造平庸内容的一种有效方式。将你觉得有价值的游戏设计文章与视频收藏起来也是提高你的技能并拓展创造性的一种有效方式。

15.不要对自己太苛刻。我知道你总是想要尽力做到最好，当然付出加倍的努力没有什么错。但是如果你觉得自己未能达到目标的话也千万别自暴自弃。我们都会犯错，而我们能够做的最好的事便是从错误中获得学习并避免错误的再次发生。如果不能从错误中走出来，你不仅会伤到自己的自尊，也将不能继续向前走，并因此错失掉更多更多的机会。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Getting Off On The Right Foot: 15 Tips From A Young Game Developer

by Michel Sabbagh

Recently, Laralyn McWilliams published her personal thoughts and tips on game development from her perspective as a game industry veteran. I found her blog post to be incredibly insightful and beneficial to developers of all demographics, and I wish to offer my take on the matter as well as someone who stands on the opposite side of the age spectrum.

Not only that, but this desire to share my beliefs on the nature of game development also stemmed from a month-long reflection I performed during the holidays, which involved looking back at all of the achievements I had accrued throughout the latter half of 2015 and 2016 as a whole.

In this response of sorts to the aforementioned article, I shall be listing 15 pieces of advice I’ve gathered from my relatively short but highly eventful experience as a game designer and writer. Most of these come from the many Tweets I write every day, and they aren’t listed in any particular order.

1 – Build up your portfolio and resume in your spare time. If you’re a student who’s aspiring to break into the game industry, make an effort to set aside some time to work on something that truly piques your interest. This can be anything from writing game design documents and articles (like this one) to drawing a character portrait and landscape. Try not to rely on classwork to beef up your catalog of work as this can inhibit your ability to pursue an endeavor of your own initiative and carve out your own personal niche. Instead, use what you’ve learned from your peers, professors and other developers to find your own voice through side projects that feel like something that only you could have created.

2 – Network extensively with fellow game developers. In addition to having a sizable list of personal works, one must also have an extensive pool of connections with whom they can share their insight and foster a solid rapport that can benefit the aspiring game developer in the long run. By networking, I don’t just mean going to game conferences and rubbing shoulders with the folks that you admire. It can also mean going on LinkedIn and social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook to connect with people in your field of interest and join groups such as the IGDA. The bigger and more relevant your network, the more likely it becomes for your work to catch the attention of game developers the world over.

3 – Seek opportunities and confidence for and while creating content, don’t wait for them. If there’s one thing that I learned from my time in college, it’s that the best kind of endeavors you can partake in are the ones that you stumble upon through various means, such as perusing the Web or hearing about them through word-of-mouth. Be open for commissions, send tips to media outlets who solicit work from freelancers, search for and partcipate in game jams to foster your design skills… Whatever you do, keep an eye out for any event, request or competition that may enable you to create something for the entire world to see. The same goes for confidence, which is something that naturally crops up WHILE you’re working on something. Waiting for it to emerge will only lead to more missed opportunities for creating and sharing new works with the world. Instead, one should be able to pursue new endeavors whenever they see a window of opportunity open up. Doing so will lead to increased confidence in one’s creative capabilities and a better work routine.

4 – Maintain a solid work/life balance. Words fail to describe the importance of this invaluable but all-too-often ignored principle. While the drive to create things of your own volition and pressure to make a name for yourself as an up-and-coming game developer can certainly tempt you to work to your fullest potential, take a moment to recharge often. Whatever you do, DON’T OVERWORK. Not only will it sap you of your energy and ability to operate normally during the day, but it can also accentuate feelings of loneliness and misery, which are the biggest creativity killers one can possibly imagine. Be productive, yes, but be responsible as well. Watch a movie, play a game, read a book, spend time with your family… Heck, take a walk! It’ll do you lots of goods and even allow you to come up with new ideas for future endeavors.

5 – Get into the habit of researching your work extensively and broadly. We are all shaped and defined by what has come before, and we all aspire to create something that feels unique and appealing to us and the world. Research is one of the finest tools a creative talent can wield since it can beget massive databases for inspirations that can span several sources and, when combined, create experiences that feel different enough from what’s already on offer to make the author stand out. As Craig Hubbard, former developer at Monolith Productions, once said, “Creativity is recombinant, and the more inspiration designers take in, the more they have to draw from and the higher the chances they’ll produce something with a distinct perspective.”

6 – Solicit constructive feedback from your audience, and respect it. In the perpetual quest for self-improvement, one has to keep up with what the market offers and craves. Feedback is the ultimate molder of projects and content that can allow the talent to adapt to what folks like and would like to see. Whether it’s making the dialog in a visual novel sound more natural or adding warmer/cooler colors to a painting, asking for feedback and taking into account what people like and dislike about your work can provide you with another opportunity to grow as a game developer. Whatever you do, DON’T PROTECT YOUR EGO. Rejecting criticism and claiming that the people reviewing it are wrong not only burns bridges and prevents you from overcoming creative obstacles, it can also deprive you of essential design and life lessons that can make you a better developer and individual as a whole. Don’t be a lout; listen to what others have to say about your work, treat them respectfully and intelligently, and incorporate feedback that can make your creations more polished and refined.

7 – Fail faster. This might sound a bit strange for me to say, but this is crucial for constant self-improvement. Great creative talents learn from their mistakes and use them as springboards for concocting new works while drawing from their personal failures. In fact, failure is what drives people to learn, and to learn rapidly is to learn effectively. If you feel like you’ve erred a bit while working on something, check to see if that feeling is well-founded by looking at what you’ve done. Whether it’s a boo-boo while drawing something and it doesn’t look quite right, or dialog that sounds either unnatural or bone-dry, noticing your errors early will enable you to better avoid such mistakes in the near-future and deal with potential creative roadblocks in a more careful and conscientious fashion.

8 – Talent in and of itself means little to nothing without a solid work ethic. We are all born with a talent for something, be it writing, art, programming, audio, and so on. That being said, talent is very much like a refrigerator that needs to keep the food inside unspoiled: if you don’t keep it running (i.e. not practicing your craft frequently), then you’ll be left with lots of wasted opportunities to build upon that talent and this will be reflected in the quality of your work. Draw, write, program, and design on a frequent or daily basis in order to improve your skills in your respective fields, which can translate to better works in the long run. Practice makes perfect, after all!

9 – Experiment with various forms of endeavors within your field. Variety is the spice of life, and one cannot develop the creative equivalent of a one-trick pony throughout their lifetime. Instead of relegating yourself to one particular form of writing/art/programming/etc…, try to experiment with sundry endeavors that lie outside your usual medium of creativity. In my case (as a writer), I sometimes concoct dialog scripts, game design documents, and character profiles that complement my slew of game design articles on my personal blog and Gamasutra. Environmental/character art, voice acting/sound design… Make an effort to branch out since you may never know whether or not you’ll excel in another aspect of your field, which can make you a more well-rounded and multifaceted developer to work with.

10 – Don’t aim for success, let it ensue. If the past couple of years have been any indication, it’s that recognition for your work is something that happens further down the line and comes out when you least expect it. Viktor Frankl once said that the more one aims at success and make it a target, the more they are going to miss it. If you start working towards an external goal or source of satisfaction (e.g. awards, trophies, attention) and diverting your attention from your work, you’ll end up with something that can feel rushed and lack the TLC that your creations usually benefit from when performed in an autotelical manner. Enjoy and immerse yourself into the productive field that you wish to pursue; don’t worry about whether or not it’ll get recognition. Success will eventually occur, but it generally does so when you don’t think about it.

11 – Share your work with others regularly. It’s one thing to have an amazing repertoire of works that you can be proud of; it’s another to have people realize that you have an amazing repertoire of works that you can be proud of. Rather than keeping your creations for yourself, share what you’ve created with the world (e.g. social media, conferences, gaming websites, etc…), be it a piece of writing that you did in your spare time or a doodle that you did out of sheer curiosity. People like to see content from developers, both young and experienced, since it can inspire them to do similar things and even make them follow your progress, a win-win that can benefit both the individual talent and game development community in terms of keeping the wheels of creativity and insight-sharing running..

12 – Plan for the long game. Reading lists such as Forbes’s 30 Under 30 and hearing about young folks who achieve success from the get-go may compel you to work briskly and non-stop without a shadow of a doubt. However, for every lucky fellow who knocks it out of the park at a tender age, there are thousands who fail to do just that. Life doesn’t end at 30 if you have yet to make a splash of some sorts. Instead, use the following years and decades as temporal opportunities to fine-tune your skills as a game developer. People like Leonardo da Vinci, Victor Hugo and Harrison Ford had to wait a long time before they began getting major recognition from their audiences. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend that you check out this three-part video essay on the subject of working and achieving success in the long-term rather than within a self-imposed and arbitrary time limit.

13 – Broaden your interests and influences, and be attentive to the little details. We may be tempted as developers to look at games and games only for sources of inspiration that will impact our endeavors. This unfortunately severely limits your worldview and prevents you from creating something that transcends the gaming medium. Playing and reading about the latest titles to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and figuring out where you can find openings to fill with your own brand of creativity is crucial, certainly. However, looking at other art forms such as movies, literature and music, and sundry topics such as politics, history and philosophy can enable you to come up with concepts and ideas that may have never been tried out in the past, which increases your chances of having your work stand out from the pack. Personal experience and life events are also fair game! As a bonus, having a wealth of influences under your belt can help you incorporate neat bits of detail into your work, like direct/indirect references to certain events and people in a script or a drawing. This can spice up your creation and make it more than surface-deep to those who enjoy looking for hidden meaning that elevate the worth of the work itself.

14 – Write down ideas and interesting information immediately in a journal or other repository. Ideas are limitless in our world, and the human brain can only process and remember so much before it forgets about them, meaning the talented mind has lost an opportunity to create something interesting and authentic. Whether it’s from a dream, a conversation or a major event, whatever we experience in our daily lives can serve as the foundation for something in our work that can make it all the more compelling. Keeping a journal or other data repository on you so that you can write down your thoughts and translate them into game concepts/ideas and mechanics is key to carving out a niche and crafting content that doesn’t feel derivative or trite. Bookmarking game design articles and videos that you find highly valuable is also a wise tactic for referring to information that may improve your skills and even broaden your overall level of creativity as a designer seeking to, forgive the pun, step up their game.

15 – Don’t be hard on yourself. Look, I understand that you want to do your darndest to be the best at what you do, and there’s nothing wrong with going the extra mile to have your work go from good to great. That being said, don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you’ve under-delivered or failed to achieve a milestone. We all make mistakes as individuals, and the best we can do is to learn from them and ensure that such unfortunate scenarios never happen again. Dwelling on them can not only lower your self-esteem, it can also prevent you from moving forward and leveraging opportunities for self-growth and improvement that can yield long-lasting and beneficial results that enhance your creative skills and subsequent works.

Despite my limited experience as a designer and writer, I feel like I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of years when I first began writing about video games in my spare time and designing them as well of my own volition. The world is indeed large, and people are vying for attention and satisfaction every day.

What I’ve provided above has enabled me to go from a point where I was feeling doubtful about my prospects as a game developer to one where I could be proud of what I’ve accomplished. I intend to keep that ball rolling as my academic days are drawing to a close. (source:gamasutra)