作者：Brenda Brathwaite

当我在上个世纪80年代进入游戏行业时，我们行业中有一类游戏设计师，我们将其称为“程序员”。他（或者她）经常是一个独揽设计、编程、音频和美术大权。在1988年之前，我一直与这种设计师同事。后来游戏变大了，开发团队规模扩大，并且出现了较明确的任务分工。团队中有美术人员、程序员、设计师，甚至是音效设计师。最终出现了制作人，并负责安排日益壮大的团队工作。

在过去10年中，尤其是最近5年，我们已经 看到这些领域分工更为细化，至少在我所身处的领域，“游戏设计师”已经成为普遍称谓。独立游戏项目使用这一称谓好像比较容易让人接受，但当你告诉别人你是一款大型Xbox 360项目的游戏设计师时，极可能听到这样的回复：“那，你到底设计了什么？”

现在我将把自己所经历的游戏设计师职业划分为以下几种类型。但要记住，这一领域并没有什么设计工具上的技术要求，我所经历的这些不同角色，主要取决于公司的需求，专注于一个或另一个方向。

Brenda_Brathwaite(from commons.wikimedia)

主设计师

主设计师要负责管理整个设计师团队，确保游戏实现整个愿景。作为主设计师，你将负责解决问题，完成本职工作，保持良好心态，向那些与你共事的人传授经验。你要借助自己的力量，或者通过他人的帮助，确立游戏的核心，并确定其功能集合（这也有可能是发行商的授意）。你可能要将这些任务分配给团队中的其他设计师。你要监督他们的工作，确保其任务不脱离正轨。在某些程度上说，你可能还要同时扮演以下列出的两三个角色。你还应该腾出精力进行分析和评价你自己和他人的工作。

你还要负责与美术和编程主管打交道，确保你想实现的功能在技术和美术上都有可行性。你会听到他们的许多“不”的声音。这里要说明一下，如果这些头儿们都能齐心协力，那么团队工作会更加顺畅。如果这里出现了头儿们的纷争，那么参与其中的人都会很遭罪。对我来说，幸运的是我只在很久很久以前经历过一次这种情况。

新主管或者立志成为主管的人，可能会误将“主管”与“命令者”或“远见者”等词语相混淆。但实际上都不是。一名优秀的主管知道何时放手，并鼓励他们塑造游戏。出色的游戏通常是集体智慧的结晶，极少是单个人的“愿景”。我曾听到一句引言“主管的职责就是激励人们在工作中发挥更多聪明才智”。

关卡设计师

关卡设计师可能是所有游戏设计师中最具知名度的角色，其工作职责是创造游戏玩法中的关卡。你在游戏中跳跃以躲避转角处杀出来的怪物，发现了一个有利的射击地点，或者感到电梯中传递过来的压力，这些就是关卡设计师为你策划的游戏体验。关卡设计师一般负责布置关卡中的怪物、物品、道具（游戏邦注：例如箱子或盒子），他们也有可能让初级关卡设计师来做这件事。关卡设计师通常也是美术人员或程序员，也能够创造许多与完成关卡有关的资产，并且完成必要的编程工作，以确保情况朝自己预期的方向发展。

在关卡设计领域也有一些不同专长的分工。例如，第一人称射击游戏（FPS）关卡设计就比RPG或MMO关卡设计更难，并且每种类型都要求设计师深入了解标准玩法机制，以及这些游戏的关卡流程。我自己就曾做过RPG关卡设计工作。

内容设计师

内容设计师的工作包括撰写游戏世界中的故事。他们可能要写故事，NPC或PC对话，游戏任务，以及游戏中支持故事发展的材料（游戏邦注：例如图书馆中的书，或者山洞中的墙壁或其他历史遗迹中所书写的内容）。

随着游戏中持续世界理念的兴起，内容设计师的市场需求已经超过以往。RPG总要用到许多内容，现在这些游戏世界也看似永无止尽，对内容的需求也同样没有尽头。内容设计师也可能要去创造大量物品、怪物或其他类型的资产。

不可将内容设计师与游戏写手相混淆，虽然这两者的职能有可能重叠。他们并不属于同一种类型，尽管他们可能兼具两种工作技能。内容设计师有可能会设计整个游戏任务流程，而游戏写手一般只编写推动任务发展的场景、文本和对话。

游戏写手

我在上一部分已经说过，游戏写手不同于内容设计师。内容设计师可能要或者无需为自己创造的任务编写文本、对话，而游戏写手却需要（并且要求较高的写作水平）。这并非任何任家都能胜任的领域。这里我要转述Chris Bateman所编撰一书《Narrative Skills for Video Games》中的话：其他媒体的作家无需相象一名NPC与玩家之间30种不同的对话方式，“伙计，我已经把该说的都说了，你还是上路吧。”游戏写手和内容设计师通常情况下是同一个人，但也并非绝对情况。

系统设计师

系统设计师专注于游戏中的特定系统，有时候要与他人合作。比如在一款战斗游戏中，系统设计师可能会关注虚拟角色创造、战斗、群动态、训练或升级系统中的一者，他们的注意力可能会集中于一些更小的系统——例如游戏中的武器，符咒的射程，或者玩家可创造的角色类型。这些全部取决于游戏以及团队大小。有时候可能仅用一小部分设计师就做完了这所有工作。我曾在一个团队中担任唯一的设计师，也曾在一个大型Xbox 360项目中与其他5名系统设计师并肩作战。

BAFTA game designers(from bafta.org)

技术设计师

技术设计师既是程序员又是设计师，要负责执行大量的游戏玩法。他们通常是是介于编程和设计两个领域的中间角色。在过去几年中，编程语言发展迅速，设计师也开始掌握了自己调整大量玩法的技能，无需劳烦编程团队。Lua和Python是目前运用最广的编程语言，但许多公司也有他们自己专属的语言。

技术设计师也可以涉足系统设计领域。我曾与一位很擅长用Excel统计和编程宏指令的技术设计师共事。他会为我提供关于如何在采用新数据之前，基于原有玩法平衡游戏的准确想法。根据我在技术设计领域的一位朋友所称，掌握概率和统计知识，对这一职业的发展也很有帮助。

UI设计师或易用性专家

UI设计师的职责是创造游戏界面，确保玩家和游戏之间的沟通顺畅。优秀的UI设计师应确保玩家容易使用游戏，并且了解游戏指令。他们应该确保本无家通过游戏获得一致反馈。这一角色最近几年变得十分有趣。像《Fight Night 3》这类游戏UI植入了群体移动，拳击公布、角色移动等元素，确保玩家收到自己所需了解的信息。而如果你并不需要这些信息，游戏中甚至不会出现一个HUD。

随着游戏由传统市场对外扩展，易用性专家在这一领域的作用也日益明显，并且提升了我们之前所忽略的设计。我现在仍能想起一名游戏设计师跟我提起她父母第一次进入虚拟世界的情况。她为父母在自己最喜欢的MMO中注册了帐号，却发现他们并不会玩游戏。为什么？因为他们不知道怎么在虚拟世界中行走。所以这个世界必定还有千千万万与他们一样的用户群体。

高级设计师

高级设计师将负责执行任何所需的任务，除了关卡设计，他们可能需要掌握一切设计技能。我认知不少高级设计师都是与关卡设计师合作，他们本身并不设计关卡。高级设计师可能已经推出了一些作品，并且至少曾担任过一次主设计师。

初级设计师

初级设计师一般要在主设计师或高级设计师的领导下工作，通过实践学习游戏设计知识。这无关你在哪上读，你曾从事什么工作，只有你真正在这一行工作，你才会了解这一职业究竟是什么。当我进入游戏行业时，还没有什么学校提供游戏设计课程，我像个学徒一样，通过观察他人的工作方式而学习，并在他们需要时随时参与其中。后来终于轮到我担任《Wizardry》系列的设计师时，我兴奋极了，觉得十分荣幸……当然也很忐忑。我无法想象如果没有事先进行一些热身准备，直接进入这个角色究竟会怎是什么情况。

游戏设计师

如果我们的工作任务不在以上范围，或者囊括以上职位，那么就统称为游戏设计师。游戏设计师的工作介于所有的这些角色，我们是通才：擅长多种任务，能够完成所要求的工作。另一方面来说，这要取决于项目大小和类型，有些项目也许只有一名设计师。在这种情况下，你并非项目主管，但就是得揽下这所有的工作。

设计总监或创意总监

这是游戏设计的最高级职位，你要负责把控多个项目的创意方向。你可能会为公司或者公司某个部门设置创意。这是一个很棒的角色，能够胜任这一职位的多半是行为中最出色的人才。他们拥有成功的履历，曾推出多款成功游戏，并且拥有至少10年的行业经验。

导师或研究型的游戏设计师

我现在就属于这种类型。

我的传授课程是游戏，讲授的是叙事内容。布置的作业就是任务（都是游戏），并为学生完成的游戏打分。我的课程设计好比是游戏设计，我几乎将整个课程转变为一种游戏，我在每个季度末评估学生的设计作品（实际上学生会评估每堂课，我会阅读每个评估结果）。

如果游戏是一种学习，事实上是很棒的学习方式，那么通过游戏授课也同样很理想。如果你还没有看过Raph Koster的《A Theory of Fun for Game Design》，那我强烈推荐你去看。还有Prof. Jim Gee的《What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy》。

这并不是说我就不讲课了。只是在讲课之后，还要有实际应用，即将授课内容运用到游戏上。我们通常创造游戏来证实理论、机制或方法的可行性。

我在设计游戏课程中投入的时间与开发游戏相当，事实上，我对“玩家”还有特定的目标。我希望他们乐在其中，如果我发现某位玩家并没有融入游戏，那我就会去思考到底该如何让该玩家对游戏产生兴趣，或者接受自己无法取悦所有人这一事实。我对一些学生项目十分感兴趣，并与他们一起设计我自己的项目，觉得授课就好像是辅导初级设计师，只是此时你一次要同时向5至10人而非一两人传授经验。这些就是我根据个人经验总结的游戏设计师类型与职能。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2008年1月17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）

Types of Game Designers

[01.17.08]

- Brenda Brathwaite

When I got into the industry way back in the 1980s, there was one type of game designer in our industry. We called him “programmer.” He (or she in the case of the rare few like Dona Bailey) was often a one-man show responsible for design, programming, sound, and art all in one. I worked with one of these individuals right on up until 1988, in fact. Eventually, games grew larger, and with the increased size came a specialization of tasks. Teams formed, and we had artists, programmers, designers and even a sound person. Eventually producers came along to network and schedule the increasingly growing teams.

In the last ten years, but more so in the last five, we’ve seen greater specialization within the fields themselves so that now, and at least in my field, the term “game designer” sounds general. It’s a perfectly okay term to use on indie game projects, but when you’re talking about a big Xbox 360 production, saying, “I’m the game designer”, is likely to result in a follow up, “Yeah, but what exactly did you design?”

We’ve got roles now. I’ve listed them below as I’ve experienced them. Bear in mind that there’s no such thing as OSHA requirements for design gigs, so what I experienced in these various roles will likely gust in one direction or another depending on the company. As usual, there are few absolutes in the game industry.

Lead Designer

Lead designers are responsible for managing a team of designers and making sure that the game’s overall vision is achieved. As a lead, you will put out fires, do what needs to be done, maintain a good attitude and teach those working with you the ropes. By yourself or with the help of others, you will establish the game’s core and define its feature set (or it may be defined for you by publisher mandate). You may decide how the project is documented, determine the basic systems and create the overall story arc, or you might assign these to another designer on the team. You review what they did and make sure it integrates into the bigger picture. At some point or another, you may take on one (or two or three) of the roles listed below. You also need to develop an eye that can analyze and critique work, your own along with everyone else’s.

You will work a great deal with the art and programming leads to make sure the feature that you’re hoping for is feasible technically and artistically. You’ll hear “no” a lot. As a note, teams go much smoother when the leads are a tight group. If there is lead warfare, it’s painful for all involved. Fortunately for me, I’ve only experienced this once a long, long time ago.

The producer squashed the art lead before it reached a dramatic point, and all was well.

New leads or those hoping to be lead someday may confuse the term “lead” with “dictator” or “visionary.” It is neither. A good lead knows when to get out of the way and encourages others to
help shape the game. Good games are rarely the “vision” of a single individual, but rather a collective whole. I once heard a quote which I will paraphrase (badly) here: the job of a lead is to encourage people smarter than they are to do their jobs well.

Level Designer

Level designers are probably the best known of all game designers, and it’s their job to create the level-by-level play in a game. If you’ve ever jumped when a monster nailed you coming around a corner, discovered a particularly advantageous place to shoot from, or felt tension coming out of an in-game elevator, know that somewhere, there’s a level designer who planned
that experience for you. Level designers generally place the creatures, items, props (boxes or crates or whatever) within the level, or they may have junior level designers who do it. Level designers are usually artists and programmers-of-a-sort as well, and may create many of the assets needed to finish the level and do all the necessary scripting to make things go exactly as they desire them to.

Within the level design field, there are different specialties as well. FPS level design is different than RPG or MMO level design, for instance, and each type requires an in-depth knowledge of the standard play mechanics and level flow within those games. I’ve worked on RPG level design my whole career.

Content Designer

Content designers are involved with the world’s narrative in some way or another. They may write the story, the NPC or PC dialog, the missions and the in-game material to support the story
(such as books in a library or writing on a cave’s wall or other historical things).

With the rise of persistent worlds, content designers are more in demand than ever. RPGs have always needed truckloads of content, and now that these worlds have been made seemingly endless, the need for more content is ongoing. Content designers might also be called upon to create massive stocks of items, creatures or spec other assets of that type.

Content designers shouldn’t be confused with game writers, although they often are. They are not one and the same, although one person may do both things. It’s quite possible that a content designer could design the overall mission flow of the game while a game writer crafts the scenes, text and dialog that pushes that mission along.

Game Writer

As I eluded to in the last paragraph, game writers are different from content designers. Content designers may or may not write the text and dialogue for the actual missions they create.

Game writers write (and hopefully write well). It is not a field that just any old writer can step into either. I like how it’s put in the book Chris Bateman edited, Narrative Skills for Video Games . To paraphrase: Writers in other mediums don’t have to come up with 30 different ways to get an NPC to say to a player, “Dude, I told you all I had to tell you. Move on.” Game writers and content designers are usually one and the same. They don’t have to be, though, hence this extra section here.

System Designer

System designers focus on one particular system within the game, sometimes in conjunction with others. For a fighting game, for instance, a system designer might focus on any one of these systems: avatar creation, fighting, crowd dynamics, training or leveling. Their attention might be focused on something smaller than a system – such as all the weapons within the game, the range of spells or the types of characters that the player can create. It all depends on the size of the game and the team. Sometimes, just a few designers will do it all. I’ve worked on a team where I was the only designer. I’ve also been one of six system designers on a large Xbox 360 project.

Technical Designer

Technical designers are part programmer and part designer and are responsible for actually implementing a lot of the gameplay. They are often the middleman, so to speak, between the
programming and design departments. Over the years, languages have evolved to allow designers the ability to tweak a lot of the gameplay without inadvertantly tweaking the programming
department in the process (“Hey. Can you change this thing for the tenth time today?”). Lua and Python are the most popular scripting languages used right now, and many companies have their own propriety language, too.

Technical designers can cross over into the realm of system design, too. I’ve worked with a technical designer who was excellent at stats and programming macros in Excel. He could give me a
pretty precise idea of how well balanced a game was based on existing play before the new data had been put into use. According to a friend of mine who specializes in technical design, knowledge of probability and stats helps here, too.

UI Designer or Usability Expert

The job of the UI designer is to create the interface for the game to make sure the player and the game communicate well with one another. It could go without saying (but it won’t): a good

UI designer makes sure that it’s easy for the player to use the game and understand its commands. He or she also ensures that the player gets consistent feedback throughout the game. This role has become quite interesting in recent years. Games like Fight Night 3 incorporate crowd movement, ringside announcements, and avatar movement into the interface to make sure the
players receive exactly what they need to when they need to know it. There’s not even a HUD in the game if you don’t want there to be.

As games seek to expand beyond their traditional markets, usability experts are increasingly entering the field and improving designs we all take for granted. I still recall the conversation that a fellow game designer had with me about her parents’ first foray into a virtual world. She’d set up accounts for them in her favorite MMO, only to discover they couldn’t play the game. Why? They couldn’t figure out how to walk in a virtual world. There are literally millions of people out there just like them.

Senior Designer

Senior designers will be expected to comfortably perform any of the tasks above if called upon to do so, and they’ll have a proven track record with all of them except, perhaps, level design. I’ve known quite a few designers in senior positions who worked with level designers, but didn’t do the level design themselves. A senior designer has shipped a few titles and probably has experience as lead on at least one of them.

Junior Designer

A junior designer generally works under a lead or a senior designer, learning about game design through practical experience. Until you work in the industry — and it doesn’t matter where you study or what you worked on — you don’t know what it’s like to be in the industry. It’s important to do your time at the junior level, too. When I got into the industry, there was no school that offered game design, or anything like it for that matter. I learned by watching what others did, and pitching in when they let me. I apprenticed. When it came time for me to be the designer on the Wizardry series, I felt excited, honored … and intimidated. I can’t imagine having to jump into a role like that without some kind of warm up.

People also step into junior design roles if it’s their first time on a new system or a new genre, like making the jump from PC to console or RPG to FPS. It’s just a matter of getting your feet wet.

Game Designer

It’s the job title we have when we’re not working in one of the positions above or we are working all the positions above. Game designers go between so many of these roles that perhaps it’s not the term that’s general, but the people who are able to fill the role. We’re generalists: specialized in multiple things and able to do what we need to do when we need to do it (or maybe I’m just fancying that we are). On the other hand, depending on the size and type of the project, there may be only one designer involved. In this case, you’re not really a lead (who are you leading?), but at the same time, you’re doing it all.

Design Director or Creative Director

This is the boss level of game design, where you are setting the creative course for more than just a single project. You may be setting it for the company or a division of the company. It’s an amazing role, and the individuals who fill it are often the best and brightest in the industry. They have a proven track record, multiple successful titles under their belts, and often 10 or more years’ experience in the industry.

I was interviewing for a DD position at a couple of companies when I accepted the professor job at Savannah College of Art and Design. I guess that will bring me to the last entry on my list, one I hadn’t though of before just now.

Game Designer as Teacher or Researcher

This is what I am now.

My classes are games, and the lectures are the narratives. The assignments are the missions (they’re all games, too), and the grades and the games my students create are their rewards. I approach course design exactly like I approach game design. I’m not just waxing on here, either. I’ve actually turned all my classes into games of a sort, and I am actually ranked and evaluated upon their design at the end of every quarter. (Seriously. Students evaluate every course, and I read every evaluation.)

If games are about learning and are, in fact, great for learning, then teaching through games is also ideal. If you haven’t read Raph Koster’s book A Theory of Fun for Game Design, you really should. Follow that up with Prof. Jim Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy.

That’s not to say I don’t lecture. I do. But after the lecture, there’s application, and in that application there’s always a game. Usually, we’re creating it to show the principle or the mechanic or the method in action.

I put as much time into designing my design courses as I would a game of the same size, in fact. I have particular goals for the “players.” I want to see them enjoy themselves, and when I find a particular player that doesn’t seem into the game, as it were, it will puzzle me and cause me to think on it until I figure out either a way to get the player interested or accept that I can’t reach everyone every time. I get absurdly interested in certain student projects, design my own projects right alongside them, and find teaching a whole lot like the process of mentoring a junior designer, except that you mentor them five or ten at a time as opposed to one or two. I think this comes from who I am and where I come from — a game designer from the industry. So, it’s all I really know, and it’s what I do.（source：gamecareerguide）