We also counted how many unique nodes existed and how far the player could realistically invest. In this case, we made a vision board with pictures of skill trees, talents, etc. Through the use of working sessions and brainstorming meetings, we narrow down what type of solution we want to pursue and then move on to doing competitive analysis. A Player Statement might be something like, "As a Player, I want my choices to matter.” Sometimes, especially for larger systems, they are very high-level, such as “The Player needs meaningful choices as they progress through the game,” or “The Player needs to feel more powerful as they progress through the game.” Together, these combine into a variety of different ideas as there are many ways to solve those problems, so it helps as a general rule to start introducing constraints and Player Statements to narrow things down. What those are and how they’re implemented in-game is handled by multiple designers, starting with a Systems Designer! Luke Barrett: Whenever we're envisioning something new, we're always presented with a Problem Statement we're trying to solve. A key belief on the team is that when a player invests a skill point, it should have a clear, tangible effect on the game, such as an ability or impactful perk. Skill Trees are a fundamental part of a deep RPG experience and give our players the ability to customize how their character functions in combat. Past Dragon Age™ games have all handled RPG systems, such as the player’s progression, differently, so naturally, we’re being just as experimental on Dreadwolf, taking the learnings of the past while also trying something new. Now that we’ve gone over the basics of being a game designer, we’re going to talk about how they’re working together on Dreadwolf. There are many other kinds of designers, too! Gameplay designers focus on creating and balancing the moment-to-moment gameplay, technical level designers create the building blocks for level designers to map out the player’s journey through locations, technical UI designers tailor how information is clearly surfaced to the player, cinematic designers craft scenes for the best storytelling experience, and narrative designers make sure the story’s flow of information to the player is a cohesive experience. Technical UX Designers then build it in-engine, working with the systems and UX designers in a constant back-and-forth, keeping the player’s experience and usability in mind at all times.User Experience (UX) Designers, collaboratively with systems designers, take the vision and explore how players will interact with it by creating mock-ups and early user flows.Their goal is to create a vision for features that will directly impact the player’s experience. Systems Designers work on a variety of features across the game, like skill trees and difficulty levels.In this blog, we’ll look at a key RPG system and how three distinct types of game designers are involved in making them. Our designers help craft, balance, and conceptualize the player’s journey-working with artists, programmers, writers, and more to build out the game in a highly collaborative process. In game development, those would be our artists. When we use the term “designer,” we aren’t referring to someone who visually creates outfits or environments, as you might expect from a fashion or landscape designer in the real world. The responsibilities of a game designer can differ from studio to studio, so we’ll first jump into how our team is handling the design work for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™. Welcome to the first Community Update of 2023!Īs promised in our last BCU, this time around we’re discussing what our game designers are up to.
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