Learning game design is a tough business.

You start with a great passion as a gamer, and in a matter of days, you’re already frustrated. You find yourself lost in the online world with no actual skill. Game design is a problem-solving activity; however, here, the real problem is where actually to start studying it. It’s so confusing that many people eventually quit out of despair.

So, since I hate wasting talents, let’s bring some order to this chaos so you can avoid drowning in a pile of mistakes even if you feel like you’re not cut out for it.

Becoming A Game Designer By “Just Making Games”

This is the worst advice you can ever receive from someone.

And even worse for aspiring game designers. So if it happens, respectfully tank and run away as soon as possible.

Whoever shares this "tip" demands that you learn something by doing the same something you don't know how to do. It seems stupid because it is. It's like building a house with only the knowledge of living in one.

And this suggestion is really common and not just online.

Unfortunately, even some professionals sometimes spread it. I'm sure they do it in good faith, and most of the time, it's because they started their careers that way.

Back at the time, there were fewer opportunities to learn than now, so you would just throw yourself in and try it out. So, when they look at today's industry, they see a rather opposite situation with more entrance gates into the business. Yes, that's true, but there's a catch they often miss and don't tell you.

They witnessed the technological change that made crafting games easier.

Nowadays, you can make a 1990s masterpiece in an afternoon with Unity or Unreal. You have a huge amount of tools to do it, and most of them are 100% free.

Yet, the game's design is the issue, and they always forget to mention it. The complexity of the average game's design today is immensely higher than any "AAA title" of the 90s. You have no hope of learning how to manage that design complexity by throwing yourself into an engine with no mental model of how games work.

That's precisely where "just making games" falls short. An analytical foundation in game design principles is not just a luxury; it's a necessity in today's complex gaming landscape.

If you go straight into a game engine, you'll get stuck on the technical side right away.

You won't even have time to think about the structure of your game idea. You lose yourself in "How do I implement this?", "What's this button for?" kind of stuff. These issues will prompt you to go to YouTube and search for tutorials on how to code.

And without even noticing, you're not learning game design, but just software. Sure, a game designer needs to be able to work in a game engine, but if you don't know Game Design, you're going nowhere.

But even if, by chance, you manage to pull off something, what about it?

You need to look at it and evaluate the result, so:

• Is it good?
• How do you know where to go from there?
• How do you improve it?

But, most importantly, what did you learn apart from technical stuff?

You can't answer these questions properly, and the reason is quite simple. Your mind is doing something without a mental model of it.

In other words, you don't know how games work at an anatomical level. You can't think like a game designer because your brain doesn't know how a game designer thinks.

This is the road of nothingness.

All those folks on forums like Reddit who ask for "actual game design learning" have probably taken this route. They jumped straight into doing something and realized they weren't doing "actual game design". They were just doing "Unity/Unreal stuff". I’m sure you don’t want to add yourself to that pile, don’t you?

You’ll end up frustrated and lost because you don't know how to reason around your game. There are no industries where "just starting" is good advice to become a professional because you need knowledge.

And game design knowledge won't magically appear while doing random stuff on Unity.

Becoming A Game Designer By Studying At School/University

Oh boy, this hits me hard because I've crossed this road myself.

I can tell you straight away that it has not been a pleasurable experience. And mean it both for my brain and my wallet.

I don't have issues spending money on education, but I want something useful. Yes, schools/universities are good when it comes to classmates. In fact, I've encountered many talented people there, but let me say one thing to be honest.

I went there to learn game design, not to find new friends. I have plenty of opportunities to do it in zillions of other (cheaper) ways.

Game dev schools and universities have increased around the world in recent years.

Some are game development schools/universities with a comprehensive game development course split into several academic years. Universities are generally more institutionalized than schools, with campuses and stuff that they often promote to hide the fact that they don't know what they're doing.

The truth is that both options are roughly the same in terms of offering. They'll give you generic knowledge about how to make a game. Yet, since they need more content, they add other random pseudo-related subjects like psychology, maths, programming, production, etc.

There are also schools like mine that have specific design courses.

They are still game dev schools, but they have a "game design" course (I'll tell you, those quotes are there for a reason). However, they have the same issue all over again.

They have just shrunk from game development to game design. Yet game design is still a vast field, bigger than people think. It's like saying "Chemistry" (where game dev is like saying "Science"). It has branches you need to specialize in; you can't be exceptional at everything about game design.

Cramping all that stuff into a single course is absurd, and it's no surprise that people are discomforted and sad. Especially after you paid that much.

There's just one way to teach that amount of stuff in a humane time frame.

Doing it superficially by teaching "a bit of everything", and that's exactly what they do. The problem is obvious, then.

You come out of it with generic knowledge, and you can't actually manage a game's design. You cannot expand an idea into structured gameplay. You have no real improved design process and decision-making. You're just overwhelmed by a superficial tsunami of random oversimplified concepts with few real game design applications.

"But they are great schools and universities; they know they're stuff!"

Let me tell you the truth. Both schools and universities don't know what to teach about game design.

They all focus on a trial-and-error process. And they cover it up with concepts stolen from the web (blog posts or GDC Talk). Each course repackages it differently, but it always boils down to coming up with something and trying it out.

I'll ask you then: do you need to commit hundreds of thousands of dollars for this? This is why companies, on average, don't trust schools and universities (unless they have a commercial agreement, but that's another story).

They won't teach you a methodology to think like a designer.

If you take the average game design course and take away all the subjects that have nothing to do with it (including programming), there is virtually nothing left. A bunch of slides on generic game design theory that doesn't translate to practice.

You'll learn many interesting technical and tangential skills for sure. Yet, the core skills you need as a game designer will remain a pale dream for you.

This route leaves you with the same frustration (if not more) and less money (and time!) in the bank.

Becoming A Game Designer By Self-Learning Online

This is probably the typical route for most aspiring game designers.

Why? Two main reasons.

First, because it’s the easiest one to pick up: go online or buy a book and start right away. Second, because this advice is literally everywhere. But let me tell you something right off the bat; the sooner you digest it, the better.

Most of what you find online is not actually game design.

Yes, it’s about games; yes it slightly touches on some design concepts. But it mostly doesn’t go beyond an “in-depth game critique”.

It’s not actually applicable, especially if you’re starting from scratch. There’s nothing analytical that tells you how to do things and think like a professional game designer. I speak from personal experience as someone who consumes this content every day. I can abstract and use them to develop something different, but they’re not usable by themselves.

There are no real game design tutorials to learn from.

You can find people talking about generic game design in lengthy talks. They can be for sure inspiring, but they won’t give you any applicable knowledge. And those labeled as “game design videos” are either game critiques, as said earlier, or they lean on programming stuff. They’re both free, but the time you waste on them is not.

I’m not telling you to avoid them all at once.

Just make sure not to create false expectations about learning game design by reading online or watching YouTube videos. On the web, you can find everything and its opposite because there are no filters.

People who post, even veteran game designers, don’t have to deliver a coherent method because it’s not their job. They just share tips and tricks about their expertise. But that’s not learning game design; you’re, at most, memorizing a little trick.

Furthermore, there is no structure online, so you need to pack things up yourself and essentially reinvent the wheel.

It’s a non-sense, time-consuming process that brings you away from the creative work. You’ll end up screaming at your computer monitor after entire days of searching through endless blog posts and YouTube conferences with nothing concrete in them.

You want to understand how games work and wire your brain to understand game design, but you only have random fuzzy pieces. How are you supposed to make a game with them? It’s like wanting to go on a car trip and starting by building the car. None told you that was part of the journey, and it shouldn’t be.

But what about books?

I can tell you there aren’t so many books about game design. The reason is always the same as before: few people know what to say about game design except for very generic stuff.

Again, I’ve read pretty much every game design book commercially available. There are 5 to 10 books worth reading, but don’t expect to learn game design from them. They’ll give you a generic overview, looking at things from a high ground with few really practical applications.

They have the same issue as game design schools and universities: they try to teach the whole game design discipline all at once. Also, for this reason, you’ll find real value in them when you already know your stuff.

So whether you go for books or online content, you need to face the same issue.

You’ll soon find adrift without knowing where to go. You’ll be overwhelmed with opposite takes and opinions about the same concepts, and you need to see what works by yourself. This will not simply make you waste precious time. But it may also convince you of wrong information about how game design works.

Then you’ll derail even more until you get in a limbo where you ask yourself if it’s even worth it to keep struggling for it.

Yeah, it’s your passion, but you don’t want to run a hamster wheel without even noticing and go nowhere.

Becoming A Game Designer By Analyzing Games

Ok, I’ll admit, this one always makes me laugh.

If it were possible to become a game designer by picking and analyzing some games, we’d have exceptional game designers all over the place. The ones who became veteran game designers didn’t do it by playing their favorite games. They studied and practiced actual game design, which is a totally different thing. But let’s go deeper and understand why some people even suggest taking this route, and I’ll make you aware of something important in the meantime.

This approach is based on a (false) syllogism.

Since “Passionate gamer knows a lot about games”. And “Game designers need to know a lot about games”. Therefore, “A passionate gamer can become a great game designer”. This is a terrible way of thinking and could not be further from reality.

Often, it’s just a way to exploit your passion for games, making you believe you already know everything you need. But what’s wrong exactly with it?

What this claim 100% misses is that gamer knowledge and game designer knowledge are not the same.

When someone says that game designers need to know a lot about how games work, it’s not the same knowledge a gamer has. A gamer, no matter how passionate could be, knows how the game works in order to play it.

A professional game designer knows how the game works to allow the player to play it. It’s not a subtle difference. Traversing this gap and becoming a game designer never happens by just analyzing games. Despite that, I am sad that even some veterans suggest this.

“Pick your favorite game and try to understand why you like it”, they often say. This is not game design.

It totally misses the point because it assumes you already have game design knowledge hidden in your brain.

You only need to release it, and you’ll become (out of magic?!) a game designer. It’s “intuitive” (damn, I hate this word).

The truth is that this approach never worked and will never work. Do you want to know why? The reason is that you’ve got an illness that is blocking you.

You share it with many people in this world who are struggling to learn game design, and you’ve been infected from the moment you became passionate about games. You suffer from it even if you already have experience designing games (sometimes even veterans!).

This illness is called the Player Myopia.

Like me, like pretty much everyone else in this field, you are passionate about games. And I’m sure you’ve been a player before even choosing to become a game designer.

On one side of the coin, this is the driving force motivating you to learn and do the craft. On the other hand, it makes you see games like a player would. The player is short-sighted about how a game works and has a superficial view. And you’ll never turn yourself into a game designer with this mindset.

This is why even when a game designer analyzes games for work, he does so in a different way than a player (or even a journalist, who is just an experienced player). A game designer literally sees things you can’t see.

You’ll not magically become a game designer if you deeply analyze hundreds of games.

The worst thing is that committing to this route will turn you into a “copy-paster”. You’ll design by randomly sticking pieces together from other games without knowing the effects of what you’re doing.

And if your portfolio is full of these “patchworked projects”, how are you supposed to be interesting to companies or other professionals in the game industry? I’ll tell you, you’re not. You’ll be one of many with a rough idea of how game design works. This way, you can’t show your professionalism, talent, and willingness to learn.

“We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates who better fit our current needs.” will be the habitual email in your inbox.

And this is the polite way of saying, “You’re not useful to us”.

Stop Going Around In Circles And Become An Analytical Game Designer

The real issue with these approaches is that you waste time on “fake game design”.

You feel a sense of progress (especially with highly engaging videos and tutorials), but it’s a trick. You’re not moving an inch forward.

They’re not necessarily malicious about it; they probably don’t even notice it themselves. They have good vibes because people are entertained (even if they achieve nothing concretely). It’s just what it is, fake progress. And if you’ve fallen into it, or worse, you’re stuck in it, you waste precious opportunities.

You voluntarily stuck yourself in a multi-year process of trial-and-error learning.

But the real damage you’re inflicting yourself is coming out of it with generic knowledge about everything and in-depth methodologies about nothing. “Creating your first game in Unity” is not learning game design. You’ve just implemented someone else’s (mostly trivial and artistically irrelevant) idea. And now what?

You can’t solve real game design problems and don’t even know how to approach them. At most, you can use a piece of software that’s going to change in a few months.

I think you can do better, at the very least…

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However, in the end, I understand why these approaches are so common, and I empathize with your situation.

Why? Because I’ve been there myself, struggling to understand what I was doing and if it was right.

Game design learning is a pretty young field compared to others. So, it’s hard to find reliable sources online, and giving credit to institutions that promise impossible outcomes is tempting. At the end of the day, you have to play with your deck of cards. You’re surrounded by an overwhelming amount of information without the necessary understanding to discover what’s true and what’s not. Game design feels like magic because everyone talks about overly generic stuff with no practical application.

So you get stuck because you don’t know how to reason to solve problems. Your love for games is a great motivator (I know because I have it, too), but it’s not enough to propel you forward.

You keep questioning yourself, “Is game design the right fit for me?”.

And it’s a perfectly normal doubt to have (everyone has it at the beginning). But you need to understand that the answer will not come from thinking over and over while time passes.

You’re wasting your, or sometimes worse, your parent’s money and time without learning anything concrete. They may have supported you at some point, and if they do, you’re lucky since parents often deny this kind of “modern stuff”. However, if you don’t bring something home, they’ll cut you off.

And the worst thing for you is that you lose your motivation. What initially was a deep passion dies out more and more.

There is only one way to learn game design seriously and reliably.

First, you must embrace the fact that you don’t “become” a game designer. To simply become one, you can just grab a Unity tutorial and replicate it.

Boom, congratulations, you’ve made a game, and you’ve become a game designer. If you want to get serious, instead, ditch this mindset and focus on the only thing that actually moves the needle for you. Turning yourself as quickly as possible into an Analytical Game Designer and starting to think like a professional. How you think makes the difference because it’s always what companies and the game industry search for. None cares if you can’t use a tool; anyone can be trained.

Developing analytical thinking over time, instead, is what you must strive for. It allows you to not only get hired or start a company but also keep working at a high level.

You must learn how to start from an idea and expand it into structured gameplay through iteration.

Everything in game design comes after. But this is not a pure trial-and-error process, as many suggest out there.

It’s about your analytical and decision-making skills, allowing you to validate the idea and build a Game Direction from it to guide your design process. The in-engine work is always a lower percentage of your actual game design work. And if it’s not like that, worry a lot because you’re randomly implementing things without thinking. The real game-changing stuff happens in your mind. Gameplay is the absolute base of every game (even narrative-focused ones).

So iterating on it with a precise Game Direction as a lighting guide is one of the most essential skills for any game designer. And it’s for sure the #1 thing to learn and master (especially for beginners).

Always remember: an Analytical Game Designer is an engineer of ideas.

You can face any challenge if you have an analytical method for assessing and solving design problems. You don’t need to rely solely on your motivation to move forward. You have a structured thinking process to understand how games work and leverage that knowledge to make the right design decisions (no matter the game genre).

It’s not “your destiny” to be stuck in a demotivating loop.

Yet, you need to think and act like a professional without dabbling around with random “dream game ideas”.