Video Game Designer - Training & Careers

As a video game designer, you will be part of a team that brings together story, graphics, and programming into a complete video game. You might be the conceptual designer and develop the original idea for a game and find ways that the story fits into a game structure. This requires mapping out the game from its first rough sketches to the final format that the user plays.

Video Game Designer Roles

There are sound effects designers who create and gather all the noises, musical cues, and other sounds that make the game come to auditory life. The graphics designers can specialize. You might work on the environment in which the game takes place and create a fantasy land with all its elements.

The video character game designer might focus only on the creatures and people who inhabit the game's world. This person works with the animators to make those characters take on a life.

Finally, good programming is critical to video game design and functionality. Programmers envision a game in terms of the computer codes that make it work. Whichever part of the video game design team you join, you'll need a comprehensive knowledge of the way computers function. You also need good communication skills and an overall knowledge of graphics intensive programs.

Video Game Designer Training

Developers will need to concentrate on a range of programming languages such as C++ and Java. A number of schools offer degree programs in video game design as well as computer animation and graphical design programs. The field is a constantly expanding one as the popularity of computer based games grows.