What does a game designer do? I mean, isn't it obvious? Aren't they artists or coders? Don't they write and 'design'?
The Door Problem (Liz England post on the Gamasutra blog)
(a post on Gamasutra recommended by John-Patrick Molloy)
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| Doors in Dublin (Lesson St). Image by Ron Cogswell - CC BY 2.0 |
And while Liz England offers the door as a metaphorical lens on the work of the game designer, doors are also one of the most ubiquitous design elements in their own right. Every building, entrance and passage involves a door of some kind, a portal between one place and the next. Each level (or dungeon) is connected to another in some way, often by a door. The appearance and operation of in-game doors are crucial. How they look, sound and work can reinforce the player's experience of "game flow" as much as interfere with it. There is much that the game designer needs to get right. Megan Farokhmanesh's article on The Verge "Why Game Developers Can't Get a Handle on Doors" further explores the challenges of doors, observing that the simplest objects are sometimes the most difficult to design.
https://www.theverge.com/22328169/game-development-doors-design-difficult
