Wondering what the difference between game design and game development is? Maybe you’re curious about what roles they do in the industry. In this article, I will go through the differences between game design and development. And, I also take a quick look into what roles a designer and developer fulfill within the industry.
Game design is about creating a purpose for the player to play the game, how the player interaction with the game, the mechanics of the game, the concept of the game (is it a puzzle game, tower defense, both? etc..). Game development is the process of creating a game from start to finish. It includes conceptualizing the game, designing, producing (coding, modeling, sound), testing, marketing, distribution, and support.
The difference between a game designer role and a game developer role is that a game designer will layout and design the game whereas the game developer will bring the designer’s ideas to life.
What Is Game Design?
Game design encompasses the mechanics and rules of a game that determines the gameplay and player’s experiences throughout the game.
A well-designed game offers polished controls, unique game mechanics, the balance between risk/reward, well-designed levels, rewards player skill. Additionally, the design of the game will allow players to have breaks between action, elements of surprise, the sense of choice, and even technical trade-offs for enhanced game feel.
Halo: Combat Evolved is an example of game design that took the FPS genre from being primarily PC to being console driven. Not only did Halo offer a story that captured players, visuals ahead of other FPS games at the time, multiplayer that no other console could do, but Bungie mapped out a control scheme that changed the way all FPS games played on the console.
To continue with the FPS genre and game design mechanics, can you imagine playing an FPS game without the modern sprinting mechanic?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare offered just that, the sprinting mechanic in FPS games. Not just a sprint that sped up the player either.
Sprinting offers a player a faster way to transverse the map at the cost of not being able to fire their weapon, additionally, the player cannot sprint forever, so choose your destination according to not get caught in the open!
Seems like a simple game design feature to include, but sometimes the simplest features are overlooked until a game designer conceptualizes it.
What Are Game Mechanics?
Game mechanics entail how the game will work. For example, can the player single or double jump? Is the player able to dash or is that something that is learned later in the game? It encompasses everything from how the player movement, to special rules that can occur in the game world.
Hollow Knight uses the game mechanic of player choice in objectives and when they want to complete them. Having the ability to complete objectives when you want unlocks power-ups and upgrades at different rates This changes how the game feels depending on what the player unlocks.
What Is Gameplay Design?
The gameplay is how the player interacts with the mechanics of the game and the overall feel of the game. The game could offer well-polished controls and challenge the player’s character control with obstacles. Skilled players are rewarded for mastering the controls by taking shorter paths or more quickly completing a level.
Using the example of Hollow Knight, the power-ups and upgrades are given to the player when they complete objectives; the harder the objective the better the reward. Completing tasks introduces the mechanics of upgrades and power-ups.
What Is Player Experience?
A Player’s experience is how the player feels while playing and interacting with the game. Is the game supposed to be hard but makes the player feel rewarded for their efforts and skill progression? Or does the game focus on the story and allows the player to feel like they are part of the world?
Cuphead is an example of a game that is very challenging but rewards the player with special abilities and the satisfaction of accomplishing a good grade when completing levels.
Games like Dustforce offer the player a chance to master the control of the character. As the player gets better at the game the quicker they become at performing more complex jump various and player movement. This game gives the player a sense of mastery.
What Is A Game Designer’s Role?
A game designer creates the story plot, objective, game rules, mechanics, and overall gameplay of the game. Game designers will generally specialize in a game genre, like first-person shooters, role-playing games, real-time strategy, etc.
Indie developers and smaller studios may share the game designer role with the entire team contributing to the design. Whereas a larger studio typically has separate teams to divide the work. Ther are designers that conceptualize the core game mechanics, objective, and story, while other teams design the levels and what type of encounters the player will face.
The best way to get into a game designer role is to start creating your own games. It’s one thing to have an idea for a game, it’s another to create it and prove the design. The reason behind this is that most people that want to get into the game industry have ideas for games, the ones that stand out are the ones that create them and build a portfolio.
What Is Game Development?
Game development encompasses the entire process of creating a game from the early stages of concept design to programming, audio, visuals, testing, and releasing the game. The process can be completed by one individual to an entire game studio.
Game development includes game design within its requirements but also includes planning, pre-production, production, testing, pre-launch, launch, and post-production. It is the basic 7 stages of game development.
Most people will think of game development as programming the game, creating the visuals, and adding in audio. But, it starts from conceptualization and never dies until the game’s support is finished.
There is a difference between game development and a game developer.
What Is A Game Developers Role?
A game developer is a software developer for games and their responsibility for producing code for the game logic and the underlying systems within the game. They could program anything from inventory systems, A.I., player movement, collisions, and weapon mechanics – to name a few tasks.
Game developers will typically use programming languages like C++, Java, or C#. They will program the underlying logic and can expose that logic as scrips to allow level designers to quickly prototype and create missions.
Conclusion
Game design is creating and mapping out the gameplay and experiences the player will face throughout the game. It includes designing the controls, game mechanics, the balance between risk/reward, levels concepts, rewards, experience, and overall gameplay.
Game development is the process of creating a game from start to finish. It starts by thinking of an idea, designing a game around that idea, planning, pre-production, production(coding, modeling, sound), testing, pre-launch, launch, and support.
Two roles are associated with these concepts: game designer and game developer. A game design’s role is to create, plan, and design a game concept, which can also include features within a game – like sprinting. Game developers are software developers (or programmers) that specialize in programming for games.