What follows is a reflection on my skills audit.

Roles in the game industry

I re-iterate the seven game-development skills in the industry here:

• Game design
• Programming
• Narrative design
• Art
• Animation
• Level design
• Sound design

I indicate my focuses for this module using a ❤, so the skills I’m most excited to learn are art and game design (and narrative design - see below):

This is what I answered on the uni forum:

Game design, and art. I’m not sure if animation will come in at all in the types of games I want to make. Level design for me so far has mostly boiled down to procedurally generating a puzzle layouts. Sounds I download from freesound.org and perhaps a tiny bit of mastering to get it to the same level. Narrative, nil so far, and possibly nil in the future.

Nil? I was tired when I wrote that.

Thinking about it a bit more, I am actually also quite interested in boosting my narrative design skills. I love writing short stories, and have a wacky imagination, so I feel I might spend some time in this area too.

In the game development process, narrative game design defines the game’s story structure and core emotional elements including theme, plot, character, and dialogue.

(Lionbridge 2020)

I did have a blast learning more about it in a previous course.

Conclusion

I dismissed narrative design in a moment of weakness, but I have a growth mindset (Stanford Alumni 2014) and will embrace everything (within limits).

I will create a mood board with inspiration and ideas for this semester’s game, as I tend to get distracted by new and shiny things when on the web. I have to find that feeling I feel when seeing my inspiration, and try to recreate that same feeling in the player when they play the game.

Oh, how I wish I had the luxury of time to just read the Art of Game Design cover to cover (Schell 2019).

Also, I was reminded of the personal branding discussion from the previous module, and I decided this is something which will flesh out more as I really nail down what types of games I’ll be making.

Bibliography

1. LIONBRIDGE. 2020. “Narrative Game Design for Every Audience.” lionbridge. Available at: https://www.lionbridge.com/blog/gaming/designing-winning-game-narrative-every-audience/ [accessed 28 Jan 2021].
2. SCHELL, Jesse. 2019. The Art of Game Design: a Book of Lenses. Third edition. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis, a CRC title, part of the Taylor & Francis imprint, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group, the academic division of T&F Informa, plc.
3. STANFORD ALUMNI. 2014. “Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck.” Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiiEeMN7vbQ [accessed 29 Jan 2021].