Last week I got asked if I would do an interview with ZDSkills about being a game designer. At this point, I’ve certainly talked about game design quite a bit, though it’s been a while since I’ve really done it from a personal perspective. This interview gave me a chance to self reflect a bit, so it was a fun experience!
You can see the interview on their site, but for posterity I’ll put my answers here as well:
Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do and how did you become a Game Designer
Hi, I’m Justin, and I’m a game designer at Ubisoft Montreal, currently working on Rainbow Six Siege!
As a game designer, my main job is to act as the conceptual anchor for my team. That means not just coming up with ideas for new features in the game and fleshing out how those features would work, but also being the bridge between the various disciplines involved with making games. That means a lot of communication. On one hand, I have to talk to programmers, artists, and other technical people to make sure that the ideas I come up with are realistic, and figure out how they’d it into our game. On the other, I have to talk to directors, producers, and external resources to convince them that my ideas are worth putting time and effort into. I have to sell all of them on the fantasy of my ideas, and then keep everyone on track for building them.
Oh, and sometimes I also have to make flowcharts or fill a whole bunch of spreadsheets with data tables. When I started this career, I didn’t expect that most of my job would be in Excel and PowerPoint, but they really are some of the biggest tools of the trade.
As for how I became a game designer, I specifically took a path towards it as soon as I got out of high school. I studied at Carleton University and Algonquin College in Interactive Multimedia and Design, moved to Montreal to get closer to the games industry, went back to school for game design at the University of Montreal, and after several years of working on small indie titles, I landed an internship at Gameloft as a Technical Game Designer, and game design has been in my job title ever since. Basically, I just persisted aggressively until I got through the door. Once you’re in, you’re pretty much set.
Can you give us a brief look into what inspired you when you were young? Did family or friends influence your decision to get into games or was this something you became interested in on your own?
For me it was very much a personal thing. Most of my family wanted me to become a doctor, lawyer, and/or engineer. Luckily Carleton calls it the “Faculty of Engineering and Design”, so that’s how I slipped it past them.
I always knew that I wanted to be a game designer, even since before I knew that game design was a profession. My family has a background in law, diplomacy, and engineering, so subjects of how systems and people interact with each other and themselves have always interested me. When I was a kid, I framed this as wanting to be an inventor.
I had always liked video games, but it’s really in high school that I fell in love with them and their potential for exploring new worlds and ideas in a way that other forms of media simply couldn’t. When I saw just how it could bring people together through shared experiences, I knew that that was something I wanted to be a part of. I’ve been chasing that dream ever since.
Do you think your education in product and industrial design has helped when designing games or may be given you a different perspective when approaching unique challenges?
One of the most critical things about being a game designer is being able to wear many hats. Because I interact with people from all sorts of different technical and experiential backgrounds, I need to be able to communicate with them, and that means understanding their perspectives.
In a sense, I was very fortunate with my upbringing and education. My schooling in high school put an emphasis on STEM, while all my hobbies were more artsy. My first university studies covered design in a very broad sense, so I got to touch a lot of different types of design: web, product, film, animation, and of course games to name a few. Working co-ops in more technical places gave me a much better understanding of just how many considerations go into creating something, no matter what that thing is. There’s a whole lot of moving parts that all interact with each other, and as a designer, it’s your job to see the big picture of what those parts are and how they’re all connected. That applies as much to the game itself as it does to how the game is produced.
The sense of perspective you need as a designer is something that can only be enhanced by having as broad a range of experiences as possible, and I’d say my past experiences helped me a lot with developing that perspective.
I remember a few professors that genuinely helped me improve and was wondering if you have any mentors or people from your past that helped inspire you and how?
I’ve been lucky enough to have some good profs and mentors. Back in high school I had Madame Robineau and Monsieur Deschenes that encouraged my passions and gave me the resources to pursue them. In university, I had professors like Doctor Arya, Monsieur Sormany, Mr. Keon, Monsieur Nataf, and Monsieur Cauchon that all were all too happy to give me some much-needed foresight into what the games industry is actually like and what sort of things I needed to develop to make a career of it myself. Then once I got into the industry, I was fortunate enough to work under Chris Budgen. He’s been my boss and mentor for almost 5 years across two studios and three titles and has helped me not just by sharing his experience and expertise, but by being supportive of my growth as a designer. I’m incredibly grateful to all of them, because without that support, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Everyone should be so lucky as to have people like that as they pursue their future.
That said, beyond just a few mentors, one of the things that really helped me in my early career and that probably set me apart from a lot of fledgling designers was all the time I spent with professionals in the industry. I went to a lot of industry events and chatted up people from all sorts of disciplines (which was not easy; I’m very introverted). Every single one of them had their own interesting stories and experiences from their time in the industry, and that really helped to paint a picture of what making games is really like and what challenges I’d have to deal with. A lot of people come into the video game industry with an idealised or otherwise distorted impression of how it works. Getting that dose of reality early on really helped me connect with the people I now work with, and made things much smoother for me overall. That may sound depressing, but it’s actually quite the opposite. I actually like the sausage better now that I know how it’s made, because I can appreciate all the things that go into making it work.
What or who inspires you today? Are you a member of any art communities? Any favorite hashtags you check on a daily basis?
I try to keep to that spirit of drawing from many influences, so I’d have a hard time telling you any one thing that inspires me. I spend a lot of my time consuming media of all kinds: games, movies, TV, books, anime, manga, streamers, Youtube, and a whole lot of art, just to name a few.
That said, something that I’ve really gotten more and more into over the last decade is tabletop gaming. TTRPGs have been a way for me to channel a lot of my creative energy. I write character journals, I sketch characters and maps, I come up with encounters and mechanics… A lot of my free time goes into building worlds and stories for that hobby of mine. As a result, I’ve also been collecting a lot of cool character art as inspiration. Right now, I’d say that’s what’s been inspiring me the most.
What’s your favorite aspect of creating a Game Designer? (*I assumed this was meant to say “being a game designer”)
At the end of a day, I’m someone who really likes both the technical and the creative. I get as much of a thrill from a good story or beautiful art as I do from a neatly formatted spreadsheet or an elegant gameplay loop. What I love about game design is that it lets me indulge in all of those things at once. The human experience is incredibly diverse and multifaceted, and I think design as a profession is a reflection of that. Blending the imaginative with the practical means I don’t have to limit myself to one or the other, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Please tell us your five short tips for creating Level Design?
Be consistent with the narrative. Levels in games are a key part of the narrative, and I’m not just talking about the written story. The gameplay, plot, and environment all need to feed into each other to produce the game’s narrative, and when these things don’t harmonise with themselves or each other, it can be really jarring. The layout and appearance of a level should reflect what feelings the player ought to be experiencing. For example, if the player is supposed to feel a sense of freedom and power in a certain moment, don’t put them in a tight claustrophobic environment.
Tie everything together. Something that is always really cool in games is when you realise just how every part of the level is interconnected in a way that makes sense. There’s a special satisfaction in unlocking a shortcut and finally understanding what that locked door you saw earlier was leading to, or finally getting to the big tower you saw in the distance at the start of a level. People like that feeling when the individual puzzle pieces come together, so try to build that feeling into your level design. If you need some inspiration, the original Dark Souls is a fantastic example of this (and there are hundreds of video essays about it).
Don’t have too much clutter. A common rule in design is that simple is best. Attention to detail is nice of course, but too much detail can cause the player to get distracted. Put the most attention of the things the player ought to be paying attention to the most, and don’t lose the forest for the trees.
Give your levels variety. Everyone’s played a game or seen a show where everything feels samey. Repetitive level design can really drag a game down, so avoid copy-pasting chunks of your level. That doesn’t just apply to looks either. Mix up how linear or open-ended your levels are, or the scale of the level, or even verticality. Doom 2016 is a masterclass on creating varied level design while keeping to a consistent overall theme.
Consider multiple angles of approach. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a game designer, it’s that players will always find ways to surprise you with how they approach a problem. Some people try to limit this and force players into certain behaviours, but my suggestion is to embrace it. Players love when they try something crazy and it ends up working, so reward that feeling through your level design. Give them reasons to explore and make your situations work with that, rather than forcing them into a single “correct” path.
Thank you!
It’s been my pleasure!