作者：Ethan Kennerly

以下是The Devil’s Ludographer以调侃语气总结的69种晋升成为“资深”游戏设计师的方法，包括从准备到制作完成后的各个阶段（游戏邦注：以下观点仅代表原作者看法）。

准备阶段

1、蓄胡子

2、以深沉、带有权威性的声音说话

这可以表达出自己的确定和专注。

3、增加体重

这会让你的观点更有分量。

4、戴上眼镜

眼镜让Matthew Broderick在《哥斯拉》中显得更加睿智。

5、潦草的字迹

天才的字迹一般都难以辨认。

6、上学

学什么或者是否学到知识都无关紧要，但一定要有名校背景。

7、活用编程和美术设计术语

这样你才能够同那些与你意见不相符的人展开争论。

8、练习画插图

没有什么比图表或草图更适合用来表达“有趣的游戏玩法”。

9、随身携带笔记本

你需要用此来记录大量的笔记和涂鸦，涂鸦往往是精妙设计之源。

10、玩大量游戏，越难越好

只有硬核玩家才能结合自己的经验构建出优秀的游戏。如果你连游戏都玩不好，怎么能期望设计出好游戏呢？要让Quake III Champion成为你简历上的亮点。

11、广泛阅读

阅读各种各样的书籍。只有两个领域无需设计师投入时间来研究，那就是软件工程和产品开发。

12、掌握面试技巧

工作总是难免遇到面试。

13、争取进入大公司

世界需要你。尽管你在小公司里也能够接触世界，但你的设计需要最新的硬件和最充裕的预算。这些都是小公司无法做到的。此外，如果不在大公司工作，怎么能通过学习他人来成为更棒的设计师呢？

预制作阶段

14、史诗

探索史诗想法。以TB为单位的美术资产将成为下个时代的主流。

15、获得预算

获得能够与你的设计相符的预算。如果没有精良的武器，切勿盲目开火。

16、融合题材

还包括美术风格和玩法风格。越新颖越好。这才是你作为设计师的职责。

17、制作困难的游戏

杰作一般都是困难的游戏，所以要让困难贯穿游戏始终。

18、在制作前先考虑推销游戏

更好的情况是，在游戏完成前便将其出售，然后让开发者负责项目的具体制作。你是个设计师，不是普通的开发者。

19、自行编写故事

如果你自行编写故事，那么没人会对故事的所有权有异议。要将故事植入游戏中，不惜任何成本。故事不可同关卡、角色及其他内容发生冲突。

20、计划

编写设计文件，制定计划。计划游戏中英雄的发色、武器的重量以及敌人的种类等各项内容。在设计文件中规划游戏采用的配色方案。游戏制作应当在计划完成而且自己觉得满意之后开始。

21、在纸上进行设计

真正的制作需要很高的成本，所以先在纸上进行设计。确保程序员和美工都理解设计内容后，再开始真正的制作。

22、选择恰当的词汇

设计文件不可过于简单。如果必要的话，可以在文件中粘贴高分辨率位图。

23、强调内容

以黑体形式强调重要内容。

24、编写虚拟程序代码

虚拟程序代码表示你的设计从宏观愿景过渡到技术细节。最佳的虚拟程序代码应当包含如下片段：

Until game is over:
Do AI.
Do UI.
Challenge the player.

25、制作幻灯片和图表

制作大量的图表。用纸张将其打印出来。用这些东西来装饰你的工作室，展示你无与伦比的智慧。

在你的USP幻灯片上，强调每个创新的技术。推销游戏卖点！

26、发明独特的词语

谁会对你自己创造的词语有异议呢？你可以根据自己的需要来改变术语的定义。程序员理解的是代码化的“含义”，但是，优秀的设计师可以为术语赋予更多的含义。

27、为你的概念起个时髦的标题

为普通想法起个时尚的标题，能够让人们看出来这个概念出自你的智慧。

28、与平庸想法划清界限

为这些想法起时髦标题便可以实现目标。

29、召开设计会议

召开设计会议。会议能够实现许多目标。在会议期间，确保你理解和领会设计精髓，同时让其他人理解。

30、在回应他人前向空中翻白眼

如果你发现与你交谈之人愚昧或不称职，那么这样做就显得更为必要。

31、否决下属的想法

至少等两周后再接受他们的想法，此时团队中的高级成员已经忘记了想法来源于何人。

32、绝对正确的姿态

模式和设计领域必须明确。不要使用数字，这并不适合精巧的互动艺术。

33、强加限制条件

关卡4中不能有小鸡，因为玩家讨厌在这种背景下出现小鸡。

34、大胆表达意见

誓死捍卫自己的意见。在所有人都同意你的意见之前，不要开始项目制作。

35、润色

确保动画画面精致，恰当记录对话，而且在原型游戏玩法出现前便已完成预渲染场景。

制作阶段

36、只用最好的东西

获得最流行的授权和最具天赋的人才。只接受有最高生产价值的内容。以制作全管弦音乐、最快的渲染器、最健全的AI和最华丽的眼球阴影为目标。在你的英明领导下，团队必然会获得成功。

37、先构建工具

能够被大量使用的工具才是最佳工具。拒绝使用任何没有WIMP界面和健全错误审查方法的工具。任何人都知道，所有设计师的错误的根源在于工具程序上的错误。

38、获得更多RAM

技术主管不理解这点？你需要运行应用程序，不是让应用程序运行你。同时运行不少于10个程序，让技术主管记住：你的RAM比渲染更加重要。你对团队的主要贡献是想法，而你的主要瓶颈就是RAM。

39、不要编写代码

代码只分两种类别：有效和无效。程序员也有两个选择：同意或者不同意你的意见。因为你已经默认同意了自己的意见，所以将自己变为程序员并非恰当的选择。此外，你亲自编码也会让某个团队成员失去对团队的作用。

40、玩游戏

玩大量的游戏。当有人不同意你设计的生命值条时，让他们去玩玩《Dungeons of Daggorath》。当有人不同意你设计的战斗界面、平台关卡等内容时，告诉他们XX游戏就是如此如此，这样才能显示你的涉猎广泛。

41、升职

尽快从关卡设计师的岗位升迁。迅速成为游戏设计师，甚至创意总监或首席创意师。就像鲑鱼逆流而上一样，仅可能地进入预制作阶段，避开制作阶段的繁冗工作。目标是为处于下游的开发者提供设计文件。

42、获得下属的支持

对于设计师的成长来说，勤快但却缺乏想象力的下属是最重要的因素。对于那些努力工作且拥有丰富想象力的下属，你可以反驳他们的想法，从而让他们遵从你的想法来工作。

43、分配任务

将新技术设定等小任务委派给初级设计师。需要让他们感受到自己真正处在项目制作过程中。

将高度概念化的设计交给初级设计师来执行。优秀的设计师往往拥有许多没有时间来执行的绝妙想法。将这些想法委派给有前途的初级设计师，这些设计师必须精通技术。不要认为每个概念都能够被制作成游戏。这是制作人考虑的事情，不是设计师的职责。

44、记住人无完人

同时要让你的下属牢记这一点。

45、亲自指导

不要总是通过字条和便签来指导。

46、不惜成本执行故事

不惜任何代价。

47、用能够引起注意的动词来表达

这个BOSS战斗可以使用更加激烈的动作。

48、拒绝评论制作价值之外的其他内容

坚持这个原则，直到游戏制作结束。当游戏依然使用占位符系统时，谁会有时间对这种模糊的控制地图或环境模型发表评论？

49、客观评价质量

在设计的任何层面中，结果与你的想法是否相同，就是评判是否需要重复制作的正确指标。如果符合你的评判标准，开发者完美地执行了你的想法，那就不需要再要求对方进行修改。

50、抛弃与自己的品味相左的做法

和其他评判一样，保持客观和一致性：你的品位才是判断标准。保持前后一致性。并非所有努力都能够得出令你满意的结果，那么符合你品味的内容才值得进行下一步的润色。其他的都要丢弃重做。功能或资产被抛弃的次数越多，开发者就会变得越睿智。

51、要求改变，然后又改回原样

只有独断专行才能维持你的方向性权威。界面是否包含bondo条目？黑龙骨骼组装谜题是否应当设置教程？做出修改决定后，如果觉得原本的决定是正确的，可以要求开发者改回原样。

52、明确传达你的想法

看到你之前模棱两可的需求所产生的结果之后，才能发出改回原样的指令。

53、重新设计

环境基础、关卡和结构只有经过不断的执行和重新设计，才能得出真正优良的设计结果。重复这个过程，直到每个人都同意你的观点。

54、测试

要评估这些测试者是否有资格对你的作品发表评论。

55、将最棒的想法留给续作

在续作中继续呈现最棒的想法（尤其是那些你借鉴的元素），并将续作视为自己下一个项目的首选。

56、旅行

你出现在开发工作室的次数越少越好。

公关阶段

57、优秀的想法

同时要告诉他人，这是你的保密协议所涵盖的内容，现在无可奉告。

58、会见媒体

联系公关媒体，并接受其采访。

记住以下这些关键词，你会成为媒体的宠儿：

（1）用“秘密”来表达“不知道”。

（2）用“此刻不能透露”来表达“还未决定”

（3）用“近期会公开更多相关新闻”回答“我们希望你能够告诉我们….”

（4）用“这些内容还不充实”来表达“哦，我真该记下来”。

59、保持对论坛的关注

保持阅读论坛中的内容。与社区意见领袖保持良好关系，尽量让你的名字被所有社区成员记住。将他们视为你的基础力量。对于他们想知道的内容，尽量提供，但是不要做出明确的承诺。

60、培养辩论技巧

训练自己的辩论技巧，果断地呈现自己的想法。在辩论中，如果其他人都落于下风，不可咄咄逼人。

61、发表演说

话题可以是设计或新出版书籍的读书报告。话题并不重要，演说就等同于免费的广告。

62、收集其他人的想法

要时常引用那些与你相同的观点，并提及观点来源。对于那些与你不同的意见，至少要承认他们的理念并非你所关注的设计或创意领域。

63、建立自己的“派系”

赞扬你的支持者，忽视诋毁你的人，甚至还可以不经意间提到他们的作品，并对其发表一些无关痛痒的评论。

64、建立社交人脉

这是你获得下个项目的重要来源。

65、不要错过游戏大会

参加行业内的所有大会。所有的大人物总是忙着开会。

66、在表达观点时提及行业巨头

越出名越好。让那些与你争辩的人需要反驳John Romero、Hideo Kojima和Shigeru Miyamoto的观点。

67、考虑改名

如果你的名字不够响亮，那就很难走红。

68、时常提及设计师的难处

公开且明确提到这一点。谈论行业中的欠缺之处。叹息原创性的缺失。宣扬改革和创新论调。将游戏视为艺术形式，提及美学内容。陈述自己的苦衷。

69、重新审视行业

你身处互动娱乐领域。“游戏”是普通开发者和程序员的事情，你关注的远不止是游戏这个行业。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2006年8月，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（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）

69 ways to become a better game designer

Ethan Kennerly

From preparation, to postproduction, here are 69 ways to become a better game designer. Learn them; live them!

Preparation

Grow a goatee

Or a beard.

Speak in a deep, authoritative voice

Nothing says conviction, dedication, and vision like a gravel-ridden voice.

Gain a few pounds

It’ll add weight to your opinions.

Wear glasses

They made Matthew Broderick look smarter in Godzilla.

Hone illegible handwriting

Nothing says mad genius like illegible scribbling. The more ambiguous the mark, the more leeway you have to make it the right mark.

Go to school

It doesn’t matter what you study (or if you study), but attend a prestigious institution.

Learn the vocabulary of programmers and artists

And throw it back at anyone foolish enough to disagree with you, like a hitman with a Tommy gun.

Practice illustration

Nothing says “fun gameplay” like a sharp diagram or a hasty sketch, with flare.

Keep a notebook

With lots of notes and lots more doodles. Doodles are the seed of brilliant design.

Play games, lots of games, the harder the better

Only hardcore gamers have the prerequisite experience and sophistication to conceive great games. Brag about your skill. If you can’t play well, how can you be expected to design well? The title “Quake III Champion” should be bulleted as a primary qualification on your resume.

Read

Read voraciously on every topic imaginable to humankind. There are only two topics not worth a designer’s time: software engineering and product development.

Practice job interviewing

A job is only a means to bigger interview.

Join the biggest company you can

The world wants you. But you can’t reach the world with anything less than the biggest company. And your epic designs need the newest hardware and biggest budgets. Nothing else will do. Besides, how can you become a better designer without working on a bigger game?

Preproduction

Epic

Think epic. Sell epic. No less than terrabytes of art assets are next gen. Don’t skimp. You deserve it.

Get a budget

Always get a budget. Big. As epic as the design. Get it. Never shoot until you’re carrying big guns.

Mix genres

And art styles and play styles. The more novel, the better. Of course a horror-shooter-dancer is brilliant. That’s why YOU are the designer. Duh!

Make it hard

Nothing says masterwork like a hard game. Start hard and stay hard.

Sell the game before you make it

Even better, sell the game, and let the developers make it. You’re a designer not a plebian developer.

Write the story yourself

No one can argue ownership of the story that you wrote. And then enforce the story … at ALL costs. No level, no character, no architectural embellishment may conflict with the Story.

Plan

Write a design document and plan. Plan the color of the hero’s hair, the height of his weapons. The specs on enemies, down to shoe size. Plan the color scheme for design docs. Don’t start until the plan is complete and approved (by you of course).

Do it on paper

Production is expensive, so be sure to get it all on paper first. Keep it there until the programmers and artists have been convinced of the light thereon. Then click the Produce button.

Choose the right Word

Make sure no word document is under a megabyte. Ever. If necessary paste in larger resolution bitmap images.

Bulletpoint everything

Everything. In bold.

Write pseudocode

Pseudocode displays that you are consumate in your design, from the grand vision to technical details. The best pseudocode contains passages like:

Until game is over:
Do AI.
Do UI.
Challenge the player.

Make slideshows and charts

Lots of charts. Always print them in full color on glossy paper. Decorate studio desks like they were fine prints by a rising artist; no lesser comparison is apt for your talent.

On your USP slideshow, bulletpoint each novel technology. Sell the game. Were you listening? SELL THE GAME! The screen is going to morph emotional metaballs that ooze pro-pixel leatherization diffusion.

Invent buzz words

Who can argue with an idiom you created? You can evolve the terminology’s definition to suit your needs. Programmers rely on hard-coded “meanings;” whereas, great designers use words as malleable means to an end.

Give your concepts a snazzy title

Take common sense ideas and give them a clever title, clearly attributable to you.

Argue against common sense

Until you’re ready to give the sensible proposal a snazzy title.

Hold design seances

Err … meetings. Lots of meetings. Meetings make the Sun go round the Earth. During the meeting, ensure you remain in contact with the spirits of design, and be their faithful conduit to the laity.

Stare off into space for a second before making a reply

Extra points if you glance at your conversation partner as if he or she were ignorant, incompetent, or both.

Dismiss your juniors

Never accept their ideas until at least two weeks later, when your seniors have forgotten who came up with the idea.

Categorically correct

Be categorical. Outlaw modes and domains of design categorically. No numbers, because numbers are for geeky losers; not consumers of fine interactive art.

Impose arbitrary constraints

No chickens in level 4, because players hate out of context chickens. Duh!

Be outspoken

Have an opinion and fight to the death over the opinion. Don’t let a finger hit the keyboard until everyone agrees with you on how the marshmellow power-ups in the Easter Egg will be implemented.

Polish, polish, polish!

Make sure the cinematics are picture perfect, the dialogue is recorded, and the prerendered scenes are complete before prototyping gameplay.

Production

Use only the best

Acquire the most popular license, and the best talent. Accept only the highest production values. Aim for full orchestra music, the fastest renderers, the most sophisticated AI, the most gorgeous eyeball shaders. Because with you at the helm, the team will surely succeed.

Build tools first

The best tools are the ones that are highly usable. Refuse to use any tool without a WIMP interface and robust error checking. Anybody knows that all designer errors are ultimately tools programmer errors.

Get more RAM

Don’t those tech heads get it? You need to run applications, not have applications run you. Run no less than 10 at once and get the tech heads to remember: your RAM is more important than rendering. Your primary deliverable is ideas, and your chief bottleneck is RAM.

Never write code

Code can only do one of two things: work or not work. And a coder can only do one of two things: agree with you or disagree. Since you already agree with yourself it would be redundant for you to be a coder. Besides it would rob a team member from a valuable relationship with you.

Play a game

And play it some more. Play the most obscure games possible. When someone disagrees with your health meter, bring up Dungeons of Daggorath as an example. When someone disagrees with your combat interface, bring up Mail Order Monster. Or with your job selection, bring up Everway. With your platformer level, bring up Montezuma’s Revenge. Eventually you’ll get one that the benighted subject hasn’t played and then you can dismiss them with a pitying glance.

Rise through the ranks

Get out of the level designer hot seat as fast as you can. Get to game designer quickly, or even better Creative Director. No even better: Chief Creative Officer. Like a salmon swimming upstream, leap into preproduction as soon as possible; avoid the downstream pollution of production. Send the downstream developer guppies your effusing inspirational Word documents.

Enlist subordinates

Nothing is more essential to growing as a designer than to have hard-working but unimaginative subordinates. The best kind are ones that seem hard working and imaginative. With these you can later disprove their imagination, until they properly fork over credit to you as the source of all new, accepted ideas.

Delegate

Delegate minor details like the definition of the amazing new technologies to junior designers. They need to feel included in the process.

Hand off your high concept designs to junior designers to implement. A great designer has more great ideas than time to implement. Hand off to promising junior designers who are in need of guidance but technically proficient. Never get stuck carrying a project from conception to production. Production is for associate producers, not designers.

Always remember that nobody is perfect

And never let your subordinates forget it.

Direct in person

But never commit or otherwise leave a paper trail back to your direction. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minions.

Enforce the story at all costs

At ALL costs.

Couch everything between high impact verbs

This boss battle could use more hot crisis action.

Refuse to comment on anything but production values

until the game is nearly done, and then get the design changed. Who could possibly have time to comment on control mapping or environment modeling when placeholder particle systems on the fountain are two hours behind the modelers’ latest?

Judge quality objectively

The proper metric for an iteration on any aspect of design is how closely the result matches your idea. If, upon review, a developer reminds you what your best idea was, even better. Reward this astute developer with no further request for change.

Make a clear distinction between tasteful and untasteful

As with any distinction, be objective and consistent: Your taste should be the metric to judge by. Be consistent; make no exceptions. Not all efforts to entertain are created equally; those that come closer to satisfying your sophisticated tastes are worth refining. Everything else should be scrapped. The more times a feature or asset is scrapped the more emphatically the developer learns.

Request a change and then request a change back

There is no better way to maintain directorial prerogative than to be arbitrary. Should the interface include a bondo meter? Should the black dragon bone assembly puzzle have a tutorial? Once you’ve decided your true answer, reverse it when making the first request. Every developer loves such a logic puzzle: He told me to skin the UI in cornflower blue, which means he really wants it red, unless he thought I would think that, in which case he really will want it blue…

Be specific

But only after you’ve seen the output of your previous, vague request. Artists love to read minds. They like it even more when you play mind games with them.

Redesign

A good design is never complete until the basics of the environment, stages, and structure have been implemented and then redesigned. Repeat this process until everyone agrees with your opinion.

Screen playtesters

Evaluate their qualifications to comment on your masterpiece.

Save the best for the sequel

Reserve the best ideas (especially those you borrowed) for the sequel to your upcoming hit. Let nothing ubercool be implemented until the sequel. (And get first option to work on the sequel.)

Travel

The less you actually appear in the development studio, the better.

Public Relations

Have a great idea

And say it’s covered by your NDA. Sorry can’t talk about that.

Interview the press

Be the single point of contact to the public.

Remember these keywords and you’ll have a drooling media mate:

“Don’t know” is pronounced “See-Kret”.

“Haven’t decided” is pronounced “Can’t reveal at this time”.

“We’re hoping you’d tell us” is pronounced “Expect more news on this soon”.

“O crap, I should be taking notes!” is pronounced “That hasn’t been fleshed out”.

Always post on the forums

Always read the forums. Befriend the community leaders and get your name firmly entrenched in everyone’s mind. Think of them as your base. Feed them what they want to hear without concrete promises.

Practice debate

Speak eloquently and profusely. Conjure poetic allusions and make authoritative arguments based on sound premises (no extra points for relevance). During your debate, if all else fails, invoke “The Human Condition.”

Give talks

On design, or a book report on your favorite new book. The topic is not important; a talk means free advertising, a free pass, and free drinks while schmoozing on why [games/developers] [are/are not] [dead/ art/visionary/rote]. Use these to talks to vet which ideas are impractical yet dreamy enough for the public to swallow as pure genius.

Collect other people’s ideas

Always give credit where credit is due, which is to those who agree with you. And for those that don’t agree with you, at least acknowledge their inferior scope as some more technical and mechanical subdivision under your domain of Design, or even better, your domain of Creativity.

Make it clique

Praise your supporters, throw them a bone. Ignore your detractors, or better, refer to their work out of context, and make offhand remarks about their philosophical points of view.

Socialize, network

Grab your next great project before this one is on the shelf (or in the can).

Never ever miss a conference

Ever. Always book yourself with bigwigs in the industry. All great people are busy; so be busy, too busy for the little people.

Drop names

The bigger the better. Make anyone who has to argue with you argue with John Romero, Hideo Kojima, and Shigeru Miyamoto.

Consider changing your name

If it doesn’t have that ring, who’ll sing your praises?

Espouse the dilemma of the designer

Publicly and loudly. Talk about what is wrong with the industry. Bemoan the lack of originality. Declare revolution and promote innovation. Elevate games to an art form, and debate fine aesthetics. Leave no grievance unvoiced.

Redefine the industry

You’re in interactive entertainment. Leave games to the peons and codemonkeys. You are above that. (Source: Fine Game Design)