“But my portfolio is freaking good!”

That’s what I hear the most when people get rejected in game design job applications. And that’s exactly what you probably think about your portfolio.

Yet, in the competitive and rapidly evolving world of game design, having a “good” portfolio isn’t enough.

The game industry has changed dramatically over the past years, becoming more complex and demanding than ever before. Today’s game design landscape requires far more than technical skills and a polished collection of projects.

So, what do you need to stand out as a game designer?

That’s what I’ll tell you if you stay with me until the end. I’ll unpack why countless graduates struggle to break into the industry by revealing an absurd paradox. Then, I’ll dive deeper into what you need to focus on as an aspiring game designer.

If you’re passionate about game design but finding yourself repeatedly hitting career roadblocks, here’s a frank exploration that goes well beyond the “just practice more” advice you’ve heard a thousands times.

Why Talents Still Struggle To Find A Place In A Booming Game Industry

The game industry is getting bigger every day.

There is no doubt that games are an absolutely magnetic artifact for many people. However, this increase doesn’t come alone since games are bigger and more complex than ever.

And it’s not just a matter of graphics or money to spend to produce them; it’s also strictly a matter of game design.

Games have a lot of different gameplay systems to manage that interact with one another in complex ways. And complex systems often need more iteration cycles to make them right.

We’re not in the 80s and 90s anymore, so a game is not made by just one lonely nerd guy in a bedroom full of junk food (the nerd stereotype apparently never dies). It’s a team effort.

Yet, it’s not a standard commercial software house team that is pretty much made up of all programmers.

You have very diverse roles, even with opposite sets of skills, that nonetheless need to collaborate in the most effective way possible, hopefully without beating each other up.

Finding the right fit for a given team could be a gigantic task for a game company.

And it is indeed! You can read everywhere recruiters complain about not finding suitable candidates and about the general labor shortages.

Companies are always in search of new talents who are skilled and passionate. They want candidates who can enhance their workforce and make their teams stronger so they can make bigger and better games.

So this must be good news for aspiring game designers, right?

Unfortunately, it’s much more complicated than that. So follow me because I need you to understand how this works so you can direct your learning effort in the most effective way possible.

The current game industry faces a frankly absurd paradox. One that leads to wonder how the hell we ever got to this point and why.

There’s a labor shortage, and at the same time, an increasing number of graduates can’t get hired.

It seems impossible, but that’s exactly the current state of the game industry.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a substantial increase in post-secondary gaming programs, resulting in thousands of graduates entering the workforce annually.

This increase in supply has created a mismatch with job availability.

So many students spend so much time, effort, and money getting out of a supposed game design academic program, hoping to find a job in the game industry.

They start sending huge amounts of CVs and Portfolios to job applications.

And then what happens?

“Your work was great, but… we moved on with another candidate. Sorry.”

If you’ve ever tried to apply for a game job application, this should be a pretty common experience.

It’s the standard negative response game design students know very well because it seems a sort of “right of passage” (often definitely too long) to hopefully get access to a real job.

That’s an unpleasant path because you only need to push forward, but, of course, the more jobs you apply for, the more of these negative responses you collect.

It can be daunting, for sure.

Trust me, this is not an issue of offer and demand; this is something much deeper than that. Also, it has to do much more with the candidate than with the company.

The main issue is the average skill of the game design student.

The average student graduating from the standard game design educational institution has a low skill level from a practical design point of view. And you don’t need to trust me about it; ask any game developer or recruiter.

I told you a moment ago that games have become much more complex, so the skill required from game designers nowadays is raised, too.

Most aspiring game designers don’t reach the base skill-level companies need. That’s a serious problem, and that’s the reason why you see fewer and fewer junior job applications in the game industry.

Training a junior game designer is one of the least cost-effective actions for a game company in the short term.

And that’s true for 2 main reasons.

First, games cost a massive amount of money by themselves, and spending even more on something with a fuzzy and unclear Return On Investment like junior training is risky.

Second, the team needs to use the work hours of some of their senior game designer to train the junior guy, meaning he can’t work like normal.

The second one is particularly an issue since seniors are generally the most skilled members of the team. Not leveraging them at full is a pretty bad waste.

Lastly, keep in mind that few seniors are great mentors. Most people overestimate the teaching skills of veteran game designers (generally low), mistaking them for their actual working skills.

Yet, if you think about it for a second, teaching is not their job, so it’s pretty normal. Doing the thing and teaching it are 100% two different galaxies.

So, game companies try not to hire graduate students, not because they’re jerks or something.

It’s a skills issue.

Developers in the game industry, on average, don’t trust educational institutions.

Yet, it’s not a mistrust generated from hate or idealogy. It’s about a continuous disconnection between the academic programs and practical requirements of the game designer job.

This issue is not something recent at all. This mistrust dates back many years and will probably get deeper.

It has worsened in recent years because of the post-COVID mass layoffs destabilizing the game industry. Many senior game designers were left home from work and, therefore, had to return to the marketplace by competing with juniors for the remaining job positions.

This highlighted the skill gaps against game design graduates even more.

Yet, you need to remember that this scenario has these pejorative points that made everything worse, but they won’t last forever.

What will never change, instead, is the lack of skills.

That’s the main issue you must focus on in your learning journey; otherwise, you’ll be crushed by the masses and disappear into indifference.

How do you solve it then?

You might be tempted to look at famous and renowned game design schools and universities.

“They are great institutions; they have access to the best talents in the world, so they must know what they’re doing and give me all the main skills I need to become a professional game designer.”

Uh... let me take a deep breath.

Ok, I’m fine. If this is your idea, we must talk about how things really are.

Game Design Schools And Universities Won’t Teach You Analytical Skills

I told you that the core issue is the lack of skills. But what kind of skills?

To be fair, it depends on the graduates and the school they graduated from. Yet, there's one type of skill that almost every graduate lacks all across the industry.

Analytical Skills.

Bear in mind this is not my opinion or my personal view of the state of game design jobs.

The IGDA (International Game Developers Association) itself confirms this in the "Hireability Gaps And Frictions Between University Game Programs And Industry Hires" 2023 report.

The study investigated the relationship between college and university game development programs and current conditions within the game industry, focusing on the apparent disconnection between the two.

The study repeatedly states, "Gaming needs people with the ability to deconstruct complex ideas and bring them down to their natural stubs".

Also, the study heavily focuses on problem-solving skills as necessary in many job roles, including game design, of course.

But this should not come as a surprise to you. Whenever you approach a design feature, you need to solve a problem.

You cannot just brainstorm a bunch of ideas and then randomly try them out to "see what works". You need to have the right mindset to face what's actually an analytical puzzle.

And if you can't analyze what you're dealing with and break it down into its atomical parts and their relations, how are you supposed to craft a coherent design feature?

Obviously, you will never do it.

But it's not because you're an idiot or something. You lack the right mindset and analytical skills to do the job.

That's why designing games in different genres feels like jumping into another world. You rely on familiar patterns you know as a passionate gamer rather than learning and improving actual game design knowledge and principles.

And again, I'm not making up anything here.

The IGDA report clearly states: "Companies were generally looking for people who were complementary to a team, flexible in their approach, and resilient when problem-solving".

Here is where game design Schools and Universities should save the day and do the job. They are the first gate for many aspiring game designers who want to break into the industry.

Unfortunately, the reality is exactly the opposite.

They are not up to the task of training a game designer with the proper set of skills required in the industry.

First of all, many game development institutions put a lot of things into the mix, totally losing the main focus they should have.

An actual game design course is a mirage most often since they tend to organize the academic program with many more things: art, programming, project management, some of them even marketing and journalism (oh dear lord…).

There are a bunch of things thrown in there without coherence.

Programs overemphasize artistic aspects over analytical skills, even in formerly game design courses.

You can see it from the fact that game design course curriculums are full of UX, UI, programming, and so on.

If you look carefully at course content, they don't emphasize gameplay design, iteration cycle, or basic things like that too much.

That's where the analytical skills are the most useful and where an aspiring game designer needs to train himself to actually improve to do the job.

Do you want to know why this part is so shallow?

It seems incredible, but the reason is that they don't know what to teach you about it.

Yeah, you read it right.

They either shoot you in the face with useless theoretical concepts that never actually translate into practice or make you engage in a trial-and-error process.

Sometimes, they do one after the other, and you're 100% stunned to the ground forever.

No one teaches you how to craft gameplay because no one knows how to teach it in a detailed and practical way.

Here is, in a simple 3 bullet points framework, the creative process you come out of from pretty much any game design course out there:

• Brainstorm to find a cool idea
• Jump straight into the engine and create a prototype
• Test your prototype and check if it's "fun".

Repeat until you "find the funniest idea".

Here it is.

Read those 3 bullet points again so they can stick into your brain, and you're done.

From a knowledge point of view, you've officially graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design. Congratulations!

However, when you find yourself in the trenches of game development and need to solve actual design problems, work in a team, communicate effectively, and reason around a gameplay structure, here is what happens.

You petrify yourself in front of the computer.

I know this because I've been there (I also had a Computer Science degree, so I had even 2). With your game design degree, you can wipe your butt at that point.

Not only because no one will look at that piece of paper but also because it doesn't mean actual game design analytical skills.

You realize you've wasted time on endless academic programs that teach everything but real game design. And what you learned won't make you interesting to companies and other professionals in the industry.

You just spent years (and an unbelievable amount of money) on courses that don't address the practical skills you need.

Ultimately, you're lost and confused and feel you've never really started your game design learning journey.

I'm describing you a nightmare, I know. Yet I'm not doing it for the sake of being rude or something.

That's what I saw happening to many classmates (and partially even to me before actually delving into serious studying) and what I want you to avoid like hell.

The same IGDA report says: "Most employers had mixed feelings about gaming degrees. They claimed that the coursework wasn't practical, the curriculums were outdated, and that recent graduates were masters of none".

This is exactly what happens when you lack analytical skills.

You have many ideas because basic ideas are 100% free, and everyone has them. Yet, that's not enough.

"I know it; the important part is execution, right?".

Wrong!

This is one of the most common misconceptions you can find out there, especially among graduates (since it's the standard mindset Schools and Universities teach).

For a Game Designer, something comes before execution, and it's much more crucial than that.

When you have an idea, you can't just jump straight into execution. You need to expand that idea and give it structure.

That's another reason (if you still need to) why analytical skills are so critical.

If you just go straight to the prototype, you skip the entire crucial stages of the design process. This often ends up overlooking apparently minor issues that backfire in the long run, crushing everything to the ground.

This kind of mistake fundamentally bases the process of schools and universities on trial and error.

Doing so makes you struggle to improve your skills, and you randomly search for "fun things" without knowing what you're doing and, most importantly, why you're doing it.

"But if this is the wrong way to design games, why do schools and universities not change what they teach?"

Because they look at the game industry and they see only that.

Let me explain since no one is going to tell you this.

In the game industry, the standard approach used pretty much everywhere (with few exceptions) is precisely the trial-and-error way I explained to you before.

This includes even many senior game designers who often work at an "intuitive level" without really deeply understanding how things work under the hood. They collected a huge amount of design patterns through experience.

They are essentially making informed guesses and seeing what comes out.

So, when it comes to schools and universities, you can have 2 different scenarios.

First, teachers could be veteran game designers who don't know how to teach you how to do stuff. They can only show you how they do it (plus some generic tips) and hope you pick up something.

Unfortunately, since they can't explain to you exactly how they think and reason (because they always do it on autopilot), the only thing you'll pick up in the end is a plain trial-and-error approach.

In the second case, teachers are not veterans, but either lacks the knowledge to formalize (and teach) the practical design process of game designers, or they have it but have looked at the game industry superficially.

And from that point of view, guess what they picked up by analyzing the game design job?

Exactly, a plain trial-and-error process.

As you can see, wherever you go to find something different, you always end up with a shallow design process.

That's why your skills can't improve, and frustration keeps rising.

You cannot improve a trial-and-error process unless you spend years after years in a pretty varied and dynamic environment so you can experience many scenarios.

This approach is a disastrous one in many ways:

• There is no guarantee you will experience the right things
• You might never have access to those environments (that are rare nowadays, by the way)
• Unlike in the past, you need skills in the first place to access those environments

Most importantly, experiencing something doesn't mean you can analyze it correctly and derive useful tools and mindset.

The less analytical skills you have, the worse you can analyze new experiences.

The best designers learn from their mistakes ONLY when they know what they're doing. Otherwise, they just made a mistake.

This trial-end-error way of working and thinking makes you drive in a bad career direction. It doesn't only affect your design process but also the mindset you have when learning game design.

So, let me bust you a common game design myth while we're here.

Everybody told you that game design is 100% practice, so you need to practice, practice, practice until you learn how to make games.

Yet, I have a question about that "until" thing: When does that moment come exactly?

How can I see it?

Do I need just to start and "hope for the best"?

I'm sure you can relate to that because pretty much everywhere you find people saying, "Just start making games!".

The issue with this approach is that you treat learning game design as a natural and inevitable thing that happens just by doing stuff daily.

Trust me, that "moment" will never come.

A passionate gamer will never magically turn into a game designer by messing things up in Unity/Unreal or writing a Game Design Document.

Each project you dive into will feel like starting from scratch, making it nearly impossible for you to get a solid knowledge base you can count on.

You develop a habit of "guesswork" rather than cultivating reliable skills.

It should be clear to you by now.

The standard approach based on trial-and-error and randomly searching for fun things is not enough in the modern and more complex game design landscape.

It won't magically transform you into the game designer companies want.

So, how do you actually do it?

What do you need to do to avoid failing like most game design applicants?

What's the secret to hacking game design hiring?

I need to disappoint you, but there's no secret. And please, please, please… I beg you, stay the fuck away from everyone that sells it to you.

Being hired as a game designer is like being hired as any other job.

You need to head down and do the work. There are no shortcuts and, most importantly, no guarantee.

No, wait, to speak the truth, you have something 100% guaranteed.

If you don't study and do the work, you'll never reach anything.

Yet, not any random work that can come to your mind but all kinds of activity that enhance the 3 critical elements every game company looks for.

The 3 Essential Elements You Need For Getting Hired

To be hired successfully as a game designer, you must pack yourself correctly.

At the most basic level, getting hired boils down to showing companies your competence. You're probably right if you think this is trivial and everyone knows it.

Nonetheless, I see everywhere aspiring game designers much more concerned about the look of their portfolio, the cover letter, the aesthetic of the resume, and all these kinds of stuff.

Don't get me wrong, you should take care of them, too, but making them a priority is a mistake.

You won't get hired as a game designer because you have a good-looking resume with the right background color palette. You'll be hired because you can effectively show your skills.

That's the number one concern you must have.

Another thing to remember is that although getting hired is your priority, you also need to focus on keeping the job once you have it.

Again, it seems obvious, but I don't see this aspect mentioned too much.

This means you need to work deeply on your skills. Developing them at a shallow level can even get you hired if you can masterfully mask your gaps in both interview and design tests (good luck with that, though), but you won't go much farther than that.

So, if you want shortcuts and easy routes, I cannot help you, and you can stop reading here.

Otherwise, here are the 3 key elements you can't fall short of for a successful Game Design career:

1. Game Design Knowledge
2. Portfolio
3. Connections

Focus on doing things that strengthen at least one of these elements every day, and you'll be there sooner than you think.

Let's take a look at them one by one.

#1 Game Design Knowledge

That’s the foundation of everything and, most importantly, for you as a professional.

If you don’t have this, you’re basically not a Game Designer or, at least, not one worthy of attention from game companies.

The most common mistake here is to focus too much on technical knowledge and fool yourself into that you’re “designing your game”. Game design doesn’t happen in a game engine.

Building a prototype is a crucial step in the game iteration cycle, so you must do it. However, that’s just one step and never the most important one.

You don’t do it for the sake of having a prototype but because you want to experience the game structure you’ve designed by interacting with it — a.k.a. testing. That’s precisely why prototyping exists, nothing more.

Yet, the most important thing to do, and the one you need to focus your skill training on, is the step right before that. You need to master crafting game structures that generate a specific experience.

That’s the core of game design.

Finding the perfect blend between theory and practice is the only effective way to achieve this.

They are often conceived as opposites but are instead two sides of the same coin. Good theory immediately translates into practice.

So whenever you find fuzzy concepts that are hardly applicable or simple tips that only work in specific cases, stay away from them.

You will do stuff without really understanding what lies behind it. And this means you don’t have control over it; you just copy-pasted.

Don’t be fooled by people who mask guesswork as “creativity”.

What you need is solid game design knowledge that makes you improve your analytical skills.

No matter the company you’ll be hired into, the game you’ll find yourself working at, and the design role, the core skill you need to train obsessively is the same.

Iterating on game structures based on a game vision to generate a target game experience.

That’s it.

Gameplay designers need to craft coherent gameplay structures to design systems that evoke emotions and sensations and communicate meanings. Level designers must do the same by managing spaces and their content. UX designers need to add the right type of feedback to the right elements, etc.

That’s what a game design job is and your essence as a professional.

Game design is a vast discipline, so it’s unrealistic you will gain complete knowledge about it.

That’s why you need to specialize.

It’s not only a good decision for your study efforts and time but also for hiring since you’ll be clearer about what you want. Trust me, companies appreciate competence and laser-focused skills when they see it.

So, strive for a “T-shaped” professional.

It means you need to choose one game design branch of specialization and become a freaking master at it by focusing the most energy. At the same time you need to acquire the basics of other branches you don’t want to specialize on.

However, keep in mind that the smaller the company you want to be hired into, the broader your skills need to be.

This doesn’t eliminate the need to specialize; you just need to combine multiple branches.

Keep in mind that it will be harder to study in-depth than it would be to focus on just one. Yet, smaller companies generally need less high-level skills than bigger ones, so things should balance out.

Of course, there’s never a one-size-fits-all solution. Yet, there is a common thread.

If you don’t study for real, you’re out.

#2 Portfolio

Let me tell you the obvious.

Your portfolio is your most important asset, representing yourself as a professional.

What you need to remember, though, is the why, which is something no one tells you since it’s an uncomfortable and not socially accepted truth.

Perception of competence is more important than competence.

I bet reading it makes you angry. You probably even refuse it right away because that’s not right.

I’m with you, yet that’s exactly how it works.

Don’t worry there’s no conspiracy behind this. It’s simply a matter of understanding how we work as human beings.

Imagine evaluating a skill of a friend of yours in a field you know very well.

I’m sure you can convey that this is not something you can do at first glance. It takes time because there are no readily available metrics you can analyze.

The best way would be to collaborate with him on that subject, maybe for a few weeks or months. When you see that he can consistently achieve high-quality results, you can conclude that he’s competent on that subject.

However, how would you do it if I told you you only have a few hours to judge him?

You’ll probably ask a few targeted questions, maybe ask him to do something small and practical, and other things like that.

I bet you won’t be so sure about your judgment of his competence as before.

But you’ll still have a judgment, and you need to base your answer on that when reporting to me because I won’t give you more time than that.

This means your evaluation of your friend’s competence will be highly influenced by your perception of him and what he showed you. You hadn’t had the time to go deeper and process more details about him.

Guess what? That’s what will happen to you in the hiring process.

Don’t get me wrong; this doesn’t mean you need to fake it.

First, you won’t last a few minutes in the studio. Second, it hurts your career a lot. So, forget immediately to fool game companies; it’s never worth it.

Instead, when building a portfolio, you must focus on building clues about your competence.

Recruiters are always in search of those.

They know they can’t evaluate 100% accurately your competence as a game designer from start to finish. It will take years to process all the applications they get.

That’s why it’s always a bad idea to throw as many projects as you can in a portfolio just to make mass.

There’s no “perfect number” of projects, but make sure you put ONLY your best ones. Also, ask yourself for every project: “What relevant competence can I highlight with what I’ve done with this project?”.

Then, write a brief summary highlighting those.

It will give people who look at your portfolio a clear and direct message about what you’ve done and, indirectly, what you can do.

So, please, don’t treat your portfolio like a junkyard.

It represents who you are to people who don’t know you. I bet you don’t want to be perceived as a pile of trash, do you?

#3 Connections

This is the ultimate facilitator.

It won't get you hired by itself because if you lack competence, you won't last too long in the business. And if it does, double-check on the company you ended up in because it's probably a bad one.

A company that settles for a referral without checking skills is run by people who aim for mediocrity. Stay away from them.

Remember that connections are a side dish that, however powerful it may be, is never the main course.

Knowing people in the industry can unlock opportunities like mentoring, job recommendations, collaborations, long friendships, etc. Open yourself to serendipity and contact people on social networks like LinkedIn.

I know it can be awkward (especially for introverts), but consider one thing above all.

You all share the same passion and goals.

You don't have to ask for recruitment right away, of course. You can ask questions or chat about whatever topic you like.

Many people in the game dev industry want to connect and chat; it's generally not a toxic community.

You never know what could come out of a simple chat:

• You can ask for feedback from your peers who are searching for a job like you
• You can ask for info about a role from actual game designers who are working in that role right now
• You can pick a specific design topic and ask a question to discover what designers think about it

Don't be afraid; you can ask whatever you like.

Game designers are generally eager to discuss game design, and it's pretty easy to trigger them in a good way about it.

The worst thing that can happen to you is that they ignore you. Nothing happened, and you can move on with your life.

Another great leverage related to industry connections is your public image.

Here we go back to the concept of perception I told you about in the portfolio section. Building a public image means leveraging web platforms (like social media, forums, blogs, YouTube, etc.) to show people that you exist basically.

This way, you can make friends and see all the beautiful things we discussed a moment ago.

But, most importantly, recruiters and potential collaborators create an image of you as someone active and willing to improve.

Again, I can't stress enough: this has to be true, but if you don't show it, it will be true only for you.

"Don't judge a book by its cover". Great advice. Do it, but don't expect others to do it because they won't.

From this perspective, you can do a lot of things to build your public image. Things like learning in public for example, which means sharing your discoveries and learnings as you progress.

You could also benefit from building a small following and maybe even some feedback and help from people.

"Who the hell could be interested in what I'm learning?".

Oh boy, trust me, the most passionate hobby of human beings is minding other people's business. Especially when they're doing the same things with the same passion.

That said, I need you to worry about a small but destructive mistake you must avoid about all of this.

Social media can get super addictive, so don't get caught up in this to the point of neglecting the effort on the other 2 key elements.

I'll tell you one more time.

Connections are a side dish — an important and effective one, but still a side dish nonetheless.

Make sure you focus the majority of your time on improving your game design knowledge and applying it in a freaking good portfolio piece you can proudly show to companies.

Focus On Improving The Most Important Asset You Already Own

The hiring process for game design is always a mess.

You never know if you're ready to tackle a design test or have the right attributes to make a good job interview.

• What questions are they going to ask me?
• Will I be able to answer correctly?
• What if I say something really stupid, and they tell me to go home?
• What if they discover I know nothing about something?

A lot of questions are rumbling in your head right now, and even during the whole hiring process, from the moment you push the "apply button" to a job application online.

That's perfectly normal.

You're human, and these thoughts and worries are nothing new or weird. Everyone has them.

However, don't let them drive your focus away from what really matters: game design.

You want to become a game designer, and that's what you need to keep your eyes on all the time. Develop a beneficial obsession about it, if you know what I mean.

But hold on there.

When aspiring game designers think about game design, their mind immediately goes to tools and stuff you can see.

Things like:

• Prototypes
• Playtesting
• Documents
• Etc.

And I bet you do it too, don't you?

Most of your study effort goes into searching for tips and tricks on how to make better prototypes and, in general, how to code stuff. In fact, you probably jumped into creating a prototype right away.

Messing up with stuff in Unity/Unreal has been part of your routine for some time.

The fact that online "expert game designers" tell you everywhere to make a lot of games makes you believe that's the right way. You just need to keep doing it until you become good.

The problem with this approach is that you'll improve only your technical skills and move further away from actual game design.

Remember what I told you in the Portfolio section up above?

Game companies don't want to see your portfolio projects just for the building stuff. They are searching for clues about your thinking process.

And about this, let me tell you an interesting fact from which you can learn a small yet crucial lesson confirming the need for deep analytical skills in game design.

I sometimes happen to talk with many game designers (both hobbyists and professional ones) — just a standard informal chat.

My favorite topic to discuss is the creative process of game design.

I ask roughly the same questions each time because I want to understand the different perspectives and see how they think differently.

They're generally very interested in talking about it because they seldom have the chance to unfold it completely.

They're much more used to go on autopilot during actual game design work. They mainly use heuristics (mental shortcuts) based on experience and genuine hope that it will work.

However, I try to keep the discussion on a deep level since I want to know the specifics of their thinking process.

So, the chat goes well and fine until we reach "The Jump".

What's "The Jump"?

It's that specific moment where they need to describe in detail how they think when turning an idea into a fully formed gameplay structure.

At that moment, they first hesitate, looking up and trying to come up with something specific to describe their process. Then they do "The Jump", which is going straight to prototyping to see if that idea is a good one.

They jumped from the initial idea to a prototype.

But how did they do it?

What thought process made them turn a rough concept into a concrete structure?

None of them can describe in detail how they do it.

They all stop at a superficial level, stating something like, "I don't know; I put things down as they come up in my mind and try them out to see if they're fun to play with".

What does this tell you?

Their creative process is 100% trial-and-error, and they can't explain it. It's not that they're stupid. It's because you can never explain trial and error. It's fundamentally random.

Do you think this kind of design process would be a good and exciting clue about your thinking in your portfolio projects?

Do you think it would be a good way of showing your skills at a job interview?

I'm sure you don't.

It would have even been tolerable back in the day because the games were much less complex, and the selection criteria were different. But not anymore.

So how do you fix this?

Again, there's no magic wand, trick, or shortcut.

You only need one powerful tool, and you need to train yourself over time to get used to leveraging it to its fullest and improve your skills with it.

This seems tough. Yet, I have good news for you. You already have this powerful tool, and it's above your neck.

Exactly, it's your brain.

Your skill in using it the right way is the most effective tool in your game designer belt.

However, coming up packed with a tool doesn't guarantee you know how to use it correctly.

You need to start thinking like a real professional game designer without chasing "how-to" tutorials and regurgitate their steps. Click, click, click on Unity/Unreal and that's it. The prototype is done, and I'm a better game designer.

It doesn't work like that.

You're tricking yourself into believing you already know everything and that "practice makes perfect".

Yet, you're not using your brain when you practice because you don't know what you're doing. You just do it mindlessly.

Don't fall from game development "gurus" on social media who promise quick success and only talk about game engines like they're all that matters.

Game design, especially crafting a coherent gameplay structure, is what matters.

This comes before everything else, and it happens in your mind.

If you have a bad thinking process and don't know what game design is made of at an anatomical level, you'll jump into a prototype without knowing what to do and why.

Despite all of this, I'm aware of your challenges about this.

Especially when you combine it with all the struggle (also, often not your fault) of the hiring process, it seems that companies try their best not to make that happen.

Getting caught up in the technical aspects is common and pretty understandable. I know you're passionate and eager to build something amazing as soon as possible.

But that's where the difference between an amateur and a professional lies.

You need to understand that technical tools are just tools; they're not "the job". Your real job is thinking on a deeper level.

I'm telling you to tools of something. It's a focus thing and makes you avoid believing that if you know how to put your hands on Unity/Unreal, you're a game designer.

You're not.

You only become increasingly frustrated when, despite being technically proficient, you fail to show your design skills when needed.

And what's worse, you lose a flood of opportunities in a market that is already competitive from the ground up.

So, I want to make sure it's as clear and sharp as it possibly can be for you.

Becoming a game designer means mastering the craft of analytical thinking to design meaningful and structured systems from a strong, defined vision.

By focusing on your brain as the powerful asset as it is, you'll gain an incredible edge over other aspiring game designers who keep getting lost and don't even know where to look.