Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
your dreams. By the time you’re working for your tenth or twelfth gaming company,
saying that your building textures for The New Adventures of Bozo might not sound
so musical anymore.
Remember that, whether you’re a programmer, artist, designer, producer, studio
management, audio engineer, or tester, you should not define yourself exclusively in
terms of your relationship to games. You will be a better developer if you don’t. At
times, you must live outside of the game industry to bring anything useful back to it.
Many developers make the mistake of living only in and around games and the game
industry. This does not help grow games.
Be mindful of your expectations. You should definitely dream and aspire, but
remember that even as a dedicated and passionate game developer, you are more
than that besides. You are not only a game developer. I’ve seen too many developers
sacrifice too much in the mythic quest to ship a game. It isn’t worth sacrificing your
marriage for a game that gets cancelled four days after your divorce is finalized. The
best game developers making very successful games (not coincidentally) know that
balance is critical—balance in development goals, timelines, expectations, relationships,
and so forth. If balance is the essence of a well-paced game, it is also the essence of a
game developer that can endure.
If you expect too much, you will probably be disappointed. Another reason why I
like to reinforce the idea of staying “diversified” in your skills, and in your approach
to the industry, is that it gives you the ability to make quick changes to correct your
balance.
Once you’ve worked in gaming for a while, you may be challenged to maintain
your level of passion. You may know the old saying: “If you really want to kill your
passion, do it for a living.” There’s some truth in it. If you have been working on a
game all day long every day (weekends too), you may not want to play games in
whatever “spare” time you can hobble together. You might want to get outside and
go hiking.
The great thing about the game industry is that even after working on many
games, as platforms come and go, there is one constant: you can always learn more
about areas related to game construction. You can bring a wide range of subjects
together for your own gaming purposes. I find that the best way to keep the passion
up for games is to challenge myself, and those around me, with assignments to explore
a new topic. I’ll choose three, four, or more per year depending on my schedule.
You’ll soon find yourself dating years by the game you were working on.
Sometimes these explorations, which began with game development, lead away
from game development. That’s okay; remember that we’re always looking to bring
something back. I’ll take a character design class. I’ll take a head modeling class. I’ll
try to learn more scripting. I’ll take a drawing or lighting class. I’ll use my rare vacation
time to visit a Scottish castle. I like game research that involves travel. I’ve always