Hey there, future gamemakers! If you’re gearing up to create the next big hit in 2024, you’re probably wondering what skills (and teammates) you need to bring your vision to life. The game development landscape is constantly evolving, with new tools, technologies, and techniques emerging every year. Aiming to build an indie gem or work on a blockbuster title—understanding the key game development disciplines involved is crucial for you, no doubt.
In this go-to guide, we’ll walk you through the essential game development disciplines: from crafting compelling narratives and designing intuitive user interfaces to programming complex systems and marketing your masterpiece, we’ve got you covered in literally everything.
We’ll break down each discipline, highlight the roles you might encounter, and outline the skills you’ll need to succeed.
So, grab your notepad, and be sure that by the end of this guide, you’ll have a clear roadmap of what it takes to turn your game ideas into reality.
Why knowing every game dev discipline matters?
So, why should you bother learning about every game development discipline?
Simple: it makes you a better game designer (and producer, and developer—it’s necessary for every teammate)!
Understanding all aspects of game development—from storytelling and visual art to programming and marketing—gives you a holistic view of how games are made and how all the pieces fit together.
Knowing every game dev discipline helps you communicate more effectively with your team. While brainstorming with artists or troubleshooting with programmers, speaking their language makes collaboration smoother and more productive.
Pro tip: Remember, in a smaller company, you’ll likely have to wear a bunch of different hats to cover all the bases. Figuring out which roles you need can help you plan for what your game will need as it comes together.
Plus, it allows you to step in and lend a hand wherever needed, making you an invaluable team player.
So, dive in, learn a bit of everything, and watch your game design (or development, no pressure) skills soar!
Game designer → the driver
Game designers are the key drivers in this exciting new video game project you’re starting. Everyone on the team is considered a game designer, as their ideas, input, and expertise will be valuable at every stage of the process. This are the persons in charge of crafting new experiences, getting player data through playtest, consolidating everybody’s opinion, and so on.
They come up with the game’s concept, mechanics, and storylines. They work with artists to visualize their ideas, programmers to make sure the mechanics work, and other team members to keep everything on track.
The tricky thing about talking about designers is that it can lead us down all sorts of rabbit holes. There are so many different types and flavors of game designers, each with their own subtypes, that it can feel like a never-ending story.
For this article, we’re going to keep it high-level and give an overview of the main types of designers you’ll encounter.
Gameplay and mechanics
This is the most general type of game designer and covers a lot of ground. These designers are the ones that convert ideas into reality. Crafting new concepts and putting them out there to see how players react.
They focus on gameplay mechanics, making sure the game is fun and engaging.
Think of them as the architects of the gaming experience, testing and tweaking until everything feels just right.
Content
This is where all the writers, narrative designers, and lore masters come into play.
Content designers create the world the player interacts with. They bring the game’s story to life, crafting the lore, history, item descriptions, NPC backstories, and dialogues. These folks can talk endlessly about plots, subplots, dialogue trees, and mission journals.
They’re the storytellers who make the game world rich and immersive.
Level
Level designers focus on creating the game’s physical space and environment. They determine the layout, figuring out how far things should be from each other and how long it should take to move from point A to point B.
Their work ensures everything is laid out efficiently. You can see their influence in spawn points, sniper views, and the overall spacing in the game world.
Systems
Systems designers are the math whizzes of the game development world. They balance the game to ensure outcomes aren’t skewed in one direction.
These designers handle the game’s economy, set the difficulty of encounters and monsters, and make sure everything is fair and fun.
They’re the ones who ensure the game runs smoothly and keeps players engaged.
Experience
Experience designers focus on how the game feels when you play it.
Think about jumping in Super Mario or playing a card in Uno, the video game—does the movement feel right? That’s their job.
They ensure that movement, reactions, and speed all make sense within the game. These designers spend countless hours fine-tuning everything to make sure it feels smooth and intuitive.
UI (and other creative minds)
You might be wondering where the UI designer fits in.
The thing is, UI designers are integrated into every part of the game design process.
They’re responsible for communicating the most information to the player using screens, which means their work touches on all other game design disciplines. They ensure that all interfaces are clear, user-friendly, and part of the overall experience.
Programmer → the coder
Programmers are the tech wizards who bring the game to life.
They write the code that makes everything work, from the basic mechanics to complex AI. They collaborate with designers to implement features and with artists to integrate visual assets.
Programmers also squash bugs and optimize performance to ensure a smooth gaming experience.
Engine
Engine programmers work on the core level of the game’s programming. They make sure all the various services, systems, and APIs are easy to use and work seamlessly.
These programmers set up the fundamental building blocks of the game, ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Thanks to standard development engines like Godot, Unreal, and Unity, this process is now much more streamlined.
Graphics
Graphics programmers focus on making sure everything in the game looks the way it’s supposed to. They ensure that visuals maintain their quality from any angle or distance.
Their goal is to make sure the game’s graphics are consistently impressive and true to the designer’s vision.
Physics
Physics programmers handle how objects interact within the game. When two or more objects collide or interact, they notify all relevant systems about what happened.
For example, if a bullet hits a player, they inform the gameplay system to reduce health.
They make sure these interactions are realistic and integrated seamlessly.
Gameplay
Gameplay programmers ensure all player interactions are tracked and responded to appropriately. They bring characters and their components together, making sure everything in the game world (aka game objects) interacts and reacts properly.
Continuing with the last example, when a bullet hits a player, it communicates with the graphics system to show blood splatter, the sound system to trigger a sound effect, and the AI to generate a reaction based on the action.
They’re the ones making sure your game feels alive and responsive.
AI
AI programmers (sometimes a subset of gameplay programming, sometimes a specialization on its own) focus on creating intelligent behavior for non-player characters. They might use shortcuts or cheats to make the AI seem smart and provide a reasonable challenge for players.
Their goal is to make the game’s AI both believable and fun to play against.
Tools
Tools programmers are the unsung heroes who make life easier for everyone else. They create software that allows artists to integrate their art, musicians to add their soundtracks, and designers to tweak game elements quickly.
While they work hard behind the scenes, their efforts are crucial for the smooth and efficient development of the game.
Overwhelmed with where to begin working in development team disciplines for video games, how to manage developers, and control everything? We get it—this work can be tough, and we know it from experience.
But don’t worry! Here at Toño Game Consultants, we’ve got your back and are ready to jump in!
Artist → the visual creator
Artists are the visual storytellers. They create characters, environments, and animations that make the game world come alive.
Working with designers, they ensure the visuals match the game’s narrative and mechanics. They also collaborate with programmers to make sure the art looks great in the game engine without causing performance issues.
Concept
Concept artists shine in the early stages of development. They create the initial look and feel of characters and environments, setting the visual guidelines for the rest of the art team to follow.
These artists are the visionaries who lay the foundation for the game’s aesthetics.
Character
Character artists focus on how characters look and feel throughout the game world. They design everything from a character’s appearance to their movements, like walking, jogging, and running. Their work ensures that characters are visually appealing and their actions are believable.
Environment
Environment artists create the worlds players will explore. They design the look and feel of different settings, making sure they convey the right emotions and atmosphere.
Their goal is to create immersive and visually stunning environments that enhance the player’s experience.
Visual effects (VFX)
Visual effects artists are the ones who add the wow factor to your game. When players achieve something awesome, these artists bring the confetti, fireworks, and other cool effects to make the moment feel epic.
They also handle explosions, smoke, and other effects to make weapons and tools feel as realistic and satisfying as possible.
UI/UX
UI/UX artists focus on conveying information in the most creative and intuitive ways. Instead of just showing a health or mana bar, they might use a container filled with blood or blue liquid to represent these elements.
Their goal is to make the user interface engaging and easy to understand, enhancing the overall player experience.
Sound designer → the audio master
Sound designers and composers create the game’s audio atmosphere. They develop sound effects, ambient noises, and music that enhance the gaming experience.
They work with designers to match the audio with the game’s tone and with programmers to integrate sound seamlessly into the game.
Their work makes the game not just visually but also aurally immersive.
Sound design and music composition
The sound designer is in charge of adding the musical elements to the game, making sure that interactions and moments feel as epic and specific as needed.
For instance, when you’re about to face a huge enemy, the music changes to match the intensity of the situation. The musician comes up with the perfect melody to enhance the gaming experience.
Audio engineering (sound effects)
The audio engineer ensures that every interaction in the game has the correct sound effect.
Whether it’s the sound of footsteps, the clash of swords, or the roar of an enemy, they make sure the audio matches what you see and do in the game, creating an immersive experience.
Producer → the organizer
Producers are the project managers of the game world. They keep everything on schedule and within budget.
They coordinate between designers, programmers, artists, sound folks, QA, and business development to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Producers manage resources, solve problems, and maintain the project on track from start to finish.
But, to keep it simple, let’s dive into 3 different types of producers that benefit most organizations.
Planners or Beginners
Planners excel in the early stages of a project. They lay the foundation, set goals, and align the team to achieve specific milestones.
These producers are all about getting things started on the right foot.
Sustainers
Sustainers don’t focus on hitting specific goals but rather on maintaining momentum. They ensure that the team stays motivated and the project progresses smoothly, even though making a game can take 3-7 years in today’s world.
Their job is to keep the team engaged and show constant progress, no matter how long the journey.
Finishers
Finishers handle the toughest decisions. They aim to ship the game in the best possible state, considering constraints like time, money, personnel, and scope.
Finishers decide what features to prioritize and what can be postponed (or maybe never done) to ensure the game is completed and ready for the market.
Quality assurance (QA) → the tester
QA teams ensure the game is always in a shippable and stable state.
If something’s off, they send it back with detailed comments so other team members can fix it. In the past, QA was often left until the very end, requiring massive last-minute efforts to meet quality standards.
Nowadays, QA plays a much more integral role throughout the development process. By catching issues early, they reduce the heavy lifting needed at the end to fix problems.
Automated testing has also been a game-changer, ensuring that new changes don’t break existing features. This way, the entire team can work more smoothly, knowing that QA has their back.
Business developer → the promoter or advocate
A business developer makes sure all aspects of a company are aligned to create a successful and profitable game. If the game doesn’t perform well, there won’t be another chance for that company.
Get the game funded
This is one of the biggest and most challenging tasks, especially if it’s your company’s first game. The more games, experience, and knowledge you and your team have, the easier it becomes to pitch and secure funding.
If you’re less experienced, your team needs to work harder on creating a compelling pitch and having a polished prototype or an advanced version of the game to attract resources. Funding options vary between crowdfunding, production companies, or venture capitalists (VCs).
The choice depends on the game’s size and potential, the resources needed, and the number of funding rounds required if the project is large (usually needing VCs in such cases).
Keeping in touch with sponsors
Constant communication with sponsors is crucial to keep the funding flowing, whether from the community or VCs.
Sponsors want to see and feel a sense of ongoing progress and iteration throughout the game development process. They need to know that their money is being well spent to deliver the experience promised to the players.
Marketing
Marketing pros are the game’s hype team.
They promote the game and build its community. They work with designers to understand the game’s unique features and with producers to plan marketing strategies.
Their goal is to make sure the game reaches its audience and gets the attention it deserves. Marketing also gathers player feedback to inform future updates and projects.
Game promotion
Marketers are the masterminds behind getting the word out about your game.
They craft and execute marketing campaigns to generate buzz and excitement. This includes everything from creating trailers and ads to setting up press releases and influencer partnerships.
Their goal is to make sure everyone knows about your game and can’t wait to play it.
Community building
Community building is all about creating a loyal fan base.
Marketers engage with players through social media, forums, and events to build a strong, supportive community. They manage communication, address feedback, and foster a positive environment where fans feel valued and heard.
A thriving community can turn players into long-term fans and advocates for your game.
Working with 2nd-party developers
Sometimes your game needs specialized help, and it’s faster and cheaper to bring in another team of developers.
That’s where business development comes in.
They decide when to outsource and find the right partners. The most common services in the industry are localization, console porting, or implementing specific technologies in the game.
Business development makes sure these resources are available to the team at the right time and in the right way.
How to juggle all aspects of game development?
Feeling overwhelmed by all the different parts of game development? Don’t worry, it’s totally normal. Here’s how to juggle everything without dropping the ball.
First, get organized. Use project management tools like JIRA, Trello or Asana to keep track of tasks, deadlines, and progress. This way, you can see what needs to be done and when, helping you stay on top of everything.
Next, prioritize your tasks. Not everything needs to be done at once. Focus on the most critical aspects first, like core gameplay mechanics, and then move on to other elements like art and sound. This ensures you’re always working on the most important parts of your project.
Delegate tasks if you have a team. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Assign tasks based on each team member’s strengths and expertise. This not only lightens your load but also leverages your team’s skills effectively.
Stay flexible and adaptable. Game development is a dynamic process, and things can change quickly. Be ready to adjust your plans and priorities as needed. Flexibility helps you handle unexpected challenges without getting stressed.
Finally, take care of yourself. Game development can be intense, so make sure to take breaks, get enough sleep, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. A well-rested mind is more productive and creative.
By staying organized, prioritizing tasks, delegating, remaining flexible, and taking care of yourself, you’ll be able to juggle all aspects of game development like a pro. Keep pushing forward, and you’ll see your game come to life!
And hey, if managing the project feels overwhelming and you’re not sure where to start, Toño Game Consultants are here to back you up! Let’s make your game development journey smoother and more exciting together.
Wrapping it up
And there you have it! We’ve explored the diverse and interconnected world of game development disciplines, each playing a vital role in the creation of a game. From the visionary designers and meticulous programmers to the artistic creators and strategic marketers, every piece of the puzzle comes together to craft an immersive experience.
Understanding these various elements not only deepens your appreciation for the art of game development but also empowers you to navigate and contribute to any part of the process. It’s a symphony of creativity, technology, and storytelling, where collaboration is key and each role harmonizes to bring a virtual world to life.
As you embark on your journey in game development, remember that the path is as expansive as your imagination. Continue to explore, innovate, and push boundaries. The world of game development is a canvas waiting for your unique touch.
So, go forth and create. The next groundbreaking game is just an idea away.
Happy developing!
