More than 50 years ago, a simple game called “Pong” was released to the public and became the first widely successful game. While not the first, it was the one that showed how popular games could one day become. Ever since, they have become a global phenomenon, providing entertainment for billions of people worldwide – according to Exploding Topics, this figure reaches over 3 billion active gamers!
From simple puzzle games (like Tetris) to fully-fledged blockbusters with hundreds of hours worth of content (like Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077), they wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of game designers and game developers, the creative masterminds and technical magicians behind them all.
But what’s the difference between game design and game development? Even though they’re closely related, they deal with very different things in the game production pipeline. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into both roles, explaining them thoroughly and listing some required skills to make it in this field.
In the intricate realm of video game creation, the distinction between game design and game development is pivotal. While game designers envision the overall design, mechanics, and player experience, game developers bring these concepts to life through programming and software development. Game designers, akin to architects, conceive the blueprint of the game, determining its narrative, characters, and gameplay elements. They focus on creating an engaging and enjoyable experience for players.
On the other hand, game developers, including programmers, delve into the technical aspects, using programming languages and application programming interfaces (APIs) to translate the design into a functional and playable game. The collaboration between game designers and game developers is essential, with both roles contributing unique expertise to the final product.
Pursuing a degree in game design or game development opens doors to these distinctive yet interconnected realms, allowing individuals to specialize in crafting captivating designs or mastering the technical intricacies of game programming. Whether one aspires to be a game designer mapping out captivating narratives or a game developer coding the backbone of an interactive world, understanding the nuanced differences between these roles is vital in navigating a career in the dynamic video game industry.
Game design: conceptualizing the core ideas behind the game
Just like how architecture is a lot about conceptualizing the structure, layout, and aesthetics of a building, game design is all about ideating the set of rules governing the game, its core mechanics, visual art style, awe-inspiring environments, main objectives, plot, and much more.
Be you a casual or a hardcore gamer, you sure have had some memorable gaming experiences. They were only possible thanks to the work of game designers, the brilliant masterminds behind these creations. By blending their creativity with a deep understanding of player psychology, storytelling elements, user experience (UX) design principles, and well-crafted game mechanics, game designers ensure their creation elicits emotions and offers a satisfying experience.
Just like architects collaborate with civil engineers, construction workers, and other related professionals, game designers tend to work closely with artists and programmers, as they are the ones translating their ideas into tangible game elements. Game designers collaborate to craft visually impressive environments to set the tone and atmosphere of a game, develop its core mechanics, and create memorable characters.
Furthermore, before the game goes into full production mode, game designers are tasked with the creation of the Game Design Document – otherwise known as the GDD – which serves as the blueprint for the rest of the team. It outlines the game’s objectives, vision, and technical constraints while providing a rough development timeline for other team members.
As the game takes shape and the team gathers feedback from the first prototypes, it is the game designers’ task to refine and adapt their designs, ensuring their difficulty-reward balance is just right and that they’re engaging, interesting, and enjoyable.
All in all, you can think of game design as the creative force behind every video game!
The many branches of game design
Even though the role of a game designer seems simple at face value, it is a multifaceted area that can be further divided into multiple branches. This is especially the case for bigger and more complex games, as the sheer workload makes it unfeasible for a single game designer to handle everything. Let’s take a quick peek at the most common niches within game design:
- User Interface/Experience (UI/UX) design: they are responsible for allying functionality and aesthetics to interfaces, ensuring the game’s menus, HUDs, inventory, progress bars, and other elements provide players with information with no hassles;
- Sound design: what would be of modern games if they had no soundtrack, voice acting, and sound effects? Sound designers are those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to create audio assets to further set the tone, compose epic background scores, work on post-processing effects for voice lines, and make satisfying sound effects for skills, characters, and other assets;
- Level design: these game designers are responsible for creating the layout and challenges within individual game levels – think of a Super Mario 64 stage or a self-contained puzzle in The Witness. This includes the whole package, which goes from the placement of objects and enemies to the speed at which players progress;
- Narrative design: they are responsible for crafting the setting, the characters, the interactions and dialogues between them, and the overarching plot of the game. This is especially important for roleplaying and story-based games, as they are likely to contain plot twists and branching storylines, so nailing every little detail is a must for an immersive and engaging experience;
- Systems design: every game has a set of rules that govern the gameplay, which is the focal point of systems designers. They dabble with gameplay elements like combat, player progression, artificial intelligence for NPCs, and core game mechanics (like resources, crafting, exploration, and achievements) to name a few;
- Game balance: last, but not least, comes game balancing. For most players, games are at their best when the experience feels challenging, but not insurmountable. This is why doing alpha tests and gathering feedback is paramount to game balance designers – it allows them to fine-tune some values and make changes to ensure the best experience possible.
Skills required to be a game designer
Now that you understand what is game design and some of its branches, let’s talk about the skills the job requires:
- Creative vision: even though you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to make a fantastic game, having a strong creative vision is key to designing beautiful systems, worlds, and solutions for your game;
- Communication and teamwork skills: as a collaborative process spanning multiple teams, game designers must be excellent at communicating their ideas and working with other professionals to ensure everything aligns with the envisioned game;
- Problem-solving skills: even though they don’t have to fight the compiler and the game engine, game designers encounter a variety of setbacks throughout the design process, which can range from tweaking numbers to developing a unique, but engaging type of puzzle. As such, having strong problem-solving skills is a must-have for those considering game design as a career;
- Technical knowledge: indeed, game designers seldom have to create game assets or implement something in code. However, knowing some technical aspects of game development allows them to make better design choices and assess the feasibility of their ideas, which might save precious hours in the long run;
- Adaptability: the gaming field is in constant evolution, with boundaries being pushed exponentially further and revolutionary tools being released year after year. For this reason, game designers must be willing to embrace new trends and technologies to suit the ever-evolving demands of the gaming industry.
Game development: bringing the game to life through lines of code
Even though “game development” is a term that encompasses the entire process of producing a video game, many people use it interchangeably with “game programming,” which is the definition we’ll use for this article.
If game design refers to the creative process of imagining a game, its plot, mechanics, and everything else we mentioned above, then game development is the process through which those ideas are taken and brought to life. After all, what good awe-inspiring visions do if they are never turned into reality?
And game developers accomplish it by writing code in a game engine… and lots of it! In fact, many popular indie games require many thousands of lines of code, and this number could surpass millions for the biggest recent launches.
In some cases, they may even create their own game engine – as big development studios do – but most would rather stick to a tried-and-true and fully-fledged tool like Unity, Unreal, Godot, or Phaser.
Their features will vary from engine to engine and so will their programming languages. Unity, for example, uses C#, whereas Unreal Engine requires you to use C++ or Blueprint, their visual programming language. With Godot, you have many options, including C, C++, and GDScript, and Phaser lets you create simple games with JavaScript.
In short, if game designers are like architects who envision something great, then game developers are the ones making them real.
Skills required to be a game developer
As you can see, even though game development is closely related to game design, it’s a beast of its own. Let’s take a look at some skills required to work in this field:
- Programming knowledge: this will vary depending on the game engine of choice, but for the most common ones either C++ (Unreal Engine) or C# (Unity) will suffice. Additionally, having a strong command of the most common data structures and some algorithms, like binary search, graphs, and smoothing functions, is very important;
- Logical thinking and problem-solving skills: writing code for anything is basically solving small problems. Good video game developers are able to break a task into smaller, bite-sized chunks and write the logic to accommodate said behavior, which requires well-rounded logical thinking skills;
- Understanding of math and physics: even though most game engines already provide their implementation of collisions, trajectories, 2D/3D transformations, and much more, there will be times you will be required to write some code on your own. To do that, it’s nice to have a grasp of linear algebra and kinematics;
- Time management: as deadlines can be very strict, this is especially true if you’re planning on working for a well-known development studio. Nonetheless, being able to manage your time with mastery is a skill that will serve you well for the rest of your life;
- Testing and troubleshooting: as the development team finishes assembling parts of the game, it’s critical to test them thoroughly to fix as many bugs and performance issues as possible to ensure the best gaming experience for players. In some cases, game testing may be outsourced to third-party companies to gather detailed feedback, which is invaluable for game developers;
- Attention to detail: as game developers are the ones assembling the final product, it’s paramount for them to implement everything as intended by the game design team. For example, bigger games often have thousands of game assets among voice lines, dialogues, 3D models, and more, and placing them all where they should be is no easy task.
Conclusion: key differences between game design and game development
In conclusion, game design and game development are two closely related yet distinct disciplines that come together to create the games we know and love.
On one hand, the game design focuses on the conceptual and creative aspects, envisioning how it should play out, its visuals, challenges, and narrative; on the other, game development is all about technical implementation and optimization through programming.
In any case, if you ever need help with anything related to these niches, Main Leaf is here to help you out! We are a complete game outsourcing studio comprising over 70 passionate professionals covering all areas of game creation.
While we’re better known for our fully-fledged games, developing them from start to finish, we are also an outsourcing company for anything game-related, like game design, sound effects, 2D/3D game assets, and much more.
As a game development studio in activity since 2010, we have a proven track record and many satisfied clients all over the world. So what are you waiting for to turn your game ideas into reality? All you need to do is request a game quote below!
