What is Game Design? Definition, Types, Career Opportunities, Salary, Courses and Admission

What is Game Design? Core Elements

The creators of the game design should exhibit their skills in creating different types of games. The game design specialisation is a combination of creativity, technology usage, story-telling and action performance. The game design is developed in such a way that it has to be suitable in multiple platforms and also several devices such as mobiles, computers, and even now in televisions also.

Game design is an integration of various concepts. Discussed below are some of the concepts that are involved in creation of a game design and development.

• Storytelling - Story telling is the main and foremost important part of the game design as the whole play is based on the story itself. A strong and meaningful story provides the players to develop their enthusiasm to reach more levels while playing.

• Rules - This is the most important aspect of game design. The rules define how the game should move on and what are the constraints used in it for a smooth play. Rules explain the game operation and interaction of players with it. Rules include movement control, scores, game solving puzzles, how the window navigates and more etc.

• Level designing - Levels are the stages of the game in which the playing of the game takes place. Game designers create these staggering levels to guide the players creating more challenges to pass by at each level. The stages involve challenges at each level by interacting with more difficult options to clear the level.

• Visual effects - Game designers have to create and give the look and feel of the game with graphics, various styles and visual effects. The themes should be of a different look at each level that is created. There are different types of games such as cartoon games, adventure games, fantasy games etc that depend on visualisation. The interesting visualisation grabs more attention and increases the game players.

• Audio effects (Sound and Music) - The audio effects are one of the most crucial parts in game design and development. The sound effects play an important role in dealing with emotions in the game where the background music develops enthusiasm in the players of the game. The sound effects are mostly associated with the actions such as footsteps, locking and unlocking, fighting, shooting, and hunting treasures. There is a background music allotted for a suspense building also.

• Player experience - The main goal involved in the game design is customer satisfaction. The player should be satisfied with the experience while playing and clearing the levels. This includes tutorial of the game, accessing of controls in a smooth way and balancing the game by clearing each and every difficulty level.

Work Process For Game Design

The game design work process has these following stages.

• Conceptualisation - This is a concept of idea that has to be created with certain themes to develop a game. Concepts are taken mostly suitable to attract children.

• Documentation - All the ideas are documented with the stories and the necessary technical requirements to be used.

• Prototyping - A prototype is built to develop a game before it's fully developed. Prototypes are built to evaluate the feasibility of the game to meet their required expectations.

• Testing - Game designers test the development of prototypes to check and fix the bugs, develop the technical requirements based on the checks done and the feedback received.

• Development and Production - Once the prototype is successfully developed and approved, the production in huge count takes place. The production includes all phases of the game design such as sound effects and music, graphics, voice recordings etc.

• Launch of game - Once the testing and production is successful, the next stage of game design process is launching of the game. Once the game is launched, the game designers include patches and updates as per the levels.

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Skills Required to Become Game Designer

The game designers need to showcase their creativity with a combination of technical support and requirements. Provided below are some of the skills required for a game designer.

• Imagination - Imaginate the possibilities of a story

• Creativity - Create new stories with imagination of the concept

• Problem-solving skills - Solve the design challenges that are upcoming in the game design

• Programming knowledge - Write programmes based on the game for design and development

• Visualisation - Must have visualisation and animation skills

Types of Game Design

Game design varies depending on the concepts, platforms and the customer themes which are as follows.

• Video game design - includes digital games for mobiles, PCs and consoles.

• Puzzle game design - includes logical and problem solving games to face challenges.

• Board game design - is the process of creating design rules, and overall experience of a table top game.

• Role play game design - concentrates on the storytelling and character design games.

• Easy to play game design - also known as casual game design for a quick play to give immediate entertainment.

• Tough game design - includes hard games facing difficult challenges to cross each level.

Career Opportunities in Game Design

As the gaming industry is in the pace of a fastest growing industry, there exists a huge number of career opportunities in the game design sector. Provided below are some of the roles offered in the game design.

• Game designer

• Level designer

• Story narrative designer

• UI/UX designer

• Game programmer

• Sound designer

• Game tester

• Digital artist

Game Design Salaries in India

Game designers have huge opportunities based on their skills and experience and also location of the company. The average game designer salary in India is in a range of Rs. 8 lakhs per annum. However, as per ambition box the average salary of a game designer is in the range of Rs. 2 Lakhs to 19 Lakhs per year.

Salary of Game Designers in India

Game Design - Courses and Admission

Game design courses are offered by the design institutes. Apart from undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, game design is also offered through Diploma and certificate courses and also online game design courses. The admission into these game design programmes is based on the scores of the entrance test conducted by the institutes or acceptance of the national level entrance exams. The shortlisted candidates are called for personal interviews for admission. The list of game design courses is as follows.