Part 1: Getting Started

Ideas are like stars—numerous and dazzling, but it takes a lot of work to confirm life near one.

—DANIEL SOLIS

I teach game design to students in one of the largest game design university programs in the world. I see hundreds of students a year, and I see a fear in them. That fear is that they have a desire—to be a game designer—and they don’t know what transition they will have to go through to become one. The role seems glorious and fulfilling, so certainly there must be a change between their present, mundane self and their future-inspired “artiste” self. Many seem to believe that a professor will come down from a mountaintop with stone tablets, they will have some divine epiphany, and all will become clear. Even you, dear reader, likely have some watered-down version of that belief. Otherwise, why would you be reading a book about game design but to stoke that transformation?

The problem with this meme is that game design itself has no gatekeepers. It doesn’t need them. If you fail (and you will), so what? Ophthalmologists, for example, have hefty barriers for entry into their profession because their failures come with major consequences. You don’t want someone failing with your eyes. If a game designer fails at making a game, then maybe someone just has less fun for a little while.

Game design requires little specialized knowledge. Plenty of specialized knowledge exists that helps (hence this book), but nearly all of it has been gleaned from the trial and error of designers who have come before and failed.

When I tell students that they can be a game designer today, I tend to get glassy-eyed stares. It is true: Anyone can make a card or board game with commonly found materials. Even digital games are easier to throw together these days than ever before with tools like GameMaker, Twine, and dozens of others. Where do you start? You make a game. You put one foot in front of the other.