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You have talked about certain things young designers can do that will set them up for failure, namely not studying in college, not prototyping ideas, and trying to burn themselves out by working to hard at the beginning and then slowing down later. What are other common early mistakes that will make a game developers job harder?

One common mistake I see with young devs is that they invest too much of their identities into what they do for work. I can understand that quite well - for most of my early career, I did the same thing. I was the game dev. I worked on famous games that most people had played, or at least heard of. It's a really big ego boost when total strangers you meet know of your work and are impressed with your job. I would caution young devs to avoid this.

One very hard lesson I learned over my career is that the industry is volatile. It's very easy to lose your job - the company financials start looking bad and there's layoffs. The game doesn't sell well and there's layoffs. The game is sunsetting so there's layoffs. When the vast majority of the costs in the industry are salaries, the vast majority of cost-cutting is how many workers to let go. We've seen a huge number of layoffs in 2023 and this year so far. I doubt we've seen the last of them. Job losses are commonplace in the industry, which is what makes the next part a really big deal.

If a large part of my identity is based on my job, I'm suddenly forced to deal with a significantly changed identity when I don't have a job anymore. That's extremely difficult to deal with when the chips are down, because being jobless puts a lot more responsibilities on my shoulders for my survival - I need to be operating at my best. At the very least I need to project confidence and competence in order to find a new job. If I must go for an extended period without work (e.g. an economic recession), that gap in my sense of identity from being a game dev encourages depression and melancholy to occupy that space. Overall it's much more healthy to separate who I am from what I do so that I don't end up in this feast or famine situation, especially when I need stronger mental health levels to find a job than I do to keep a job.

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I want to become a systems designer one day, what’s the best but realistic way to get there? (I don’t have a systems preference i.e player abilities vs economy, I just like systems).

The best way to get better at being a systems designer is to design game systems for games. This doesn't have to be designing systems for video games - a lot of system designers I know are extremely proficient card, board, and tabletop game designers too. Remember, the purpose of system design is to create an elegant set of game rules that convey a game experience to the player. The rules of play will direct how the player feels, so we must take care in crafting them.

For beginners, try building a variant mode on a board, card, or tabletop game you already have. Maybe take your old Monopoly board and try some rules variants. What happens if you increase or decrease the number of houses you can build? How does the game experience change if you halve the price of every property? What happens if each player starts the game with a monopoly? How does it feel if you add new kinds of cards to the Community Chest and Chance decks? Then playtest your changes and see how things feel. Try to figure out how and why the changes you made affect the feelings the players feel.

Once you start getting a feel for how rule changes affect an existing game, take the next step - try building your own board or card game. Choose a theme or experience you want players to have, and then build a game to get them to feel it. Maybe you want to emulate the experience of surviving alone in a wilderness, climbing a mountain, opening a treasure chest, shooting at a bullseye, or getting your senpai to notice you. Whatever it is, try creating a set of rules to try to emulate that experience. Then gather some friends, playtest the game, and see if it feels good. Why or why not? How do you improve it?

By doing this over and over with different games, you will level up your system design skills. I know several designers who have crossed over between tabletop/board/card game and video game system design positions because design skill translates from platform to platform.

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Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

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Frequent Questions: The FAQ

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I feel like I would excel in world domination but until I learn to consistently take my Adderall and learn proper coping strategies for my ADHD, that’s not gonna happen.

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imagine you're a fifth-grade teacher and one day a crow just flies into your classroom, steals some food, sits on some kid's head, and shouts "fuck off"

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Dishonored Corvo and gear concept art

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I love how both corvids and parrots are in general highly intelligent, but where corvids generally have strict hierarchies, solve disagreements in the pecking order by fighting, and have a strong dislike for anything new or foreign until they figure out how to make use of it, parrots are just here to party.

The New Caledonian crow, who knows how to specifically build a tool in order to build another tool, never engages in play. These motherfuckers are smarter than some people with the right to vote, and they are Extremely Serious Birds. They don't have time to play, they got work to do and kids to raise.

And then there's the kea, straight-up titled "clown of the mountains", that has a specific vocalization for "playtime!". Scientists decided to try what happens if they play the Play Call for two fully-grown adult keas that are together in an area and can clearly see there is no other, third kea to make the call, and they just go "great idea, disembodied voice! it's TIME TO FUCKING PARTY!" and start wrestling.

Imagine working really hard in order to make it into a top university to study astrophysics, making it to your first Very Serious Class, sitting down full of serious determination, and the dude next to you is taking notes without using his hands, with a glitter pen he's shoved up his nose. And his notes are good.

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New hip trend: superfluously attributing normal actions and outcomes to divine intervention, Iliad-style

“then Pallas Athene came to me, speaking of the midday sun and of the hunger in my belly, so I ate lunch”

“but Phoebus Apollo clouded my mind with fear and confusion, and that’s why I forgot my keys“

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give ginny a sword you cowards

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One thing I like to joke around with about my anxiety, depression, and ADHD is how I cope with the whole package. The best way I can cope with all those issues is art and video games. So the joke is:

“If anxiety, depression, and ADHD are going to cause problems my whole life, they may as well also pay the bills.”

This is why I’m (hopefully) going into the video game industry. I wanna help people with my issues too. The pandemic WRECKED my life in regards to my mental health. I got through it through video games such as Dragon Age, Skyrim, and Tomb Raider. I created characters, learned, and even came out better on the other side. One of my favorite motivational quotes comes from Flemeth in Dragon Age 2. We all know it but I’m bringing it back up anyways.

“We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.” —Flemeth, Dragon Age 2

I got into college integrating that quote into my admissions essay. I was accepted into all three I applied for. Here is my favorite chunk of my admission essay:

“This quote changed how I look at opportunities in the world. I knew that with my anxiety becoming a barrier for me, especially through the pandemic, I had to stop hesitating. Through the pandemic, I kept falling and falling into the abyss of depression and anxiety. This caused my grades and performance to falter which would further my plummet in my mental health. Whenever I thought about Flemeth’s quote to the Champion of Kirkwall, I realized her words lit a spark in me to keep trying. I reached out to others for help and encouraged myself to be vulnerable. Only then, did I learn how to fly.”

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Cursed school presentations? Thank you!

I hate presentations 😂but who doesn’t?

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NEAT!

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“When you can’t run, you crawl. And when you can’t crawl - when you can’t do that, you find someone to carry you.”

-Firefly (inspired by MLK quote)

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I graduated high school with a diploma and an associates of science and I

Already read like crap

Wish me luck ✨

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alright. fuck small talk. let’s overshare about our trauma while we listen to hozier and drink day old iced coffee.

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i’ve decided. embarrassing parts of books are a million times worse than embarrassing parts of movies because you can’t look away or cover your face until it’s over you have no choice but to pay attention and endure that secondhand embarrassment with them.

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You need motivation to study? Let me introduce you to spiteful studying. When you study a subject to prove someone wrong. When you spend hours writing up notes so that you can get that grade and smile smugly at the teacher who predicted you a lower grade. Find someone to prove wrong, it can be a teacher, a parent, friend or just to prove society that you’re so much more capable then they say you are!

Trust me, it works.