Hi,

so I was watching some of the GDC vault presentations and in one of them (can't remember which one) about game design, the lecturer said something along the lines: "As game designer you have to come up with ideas that are as crazy as possible, the programmers will tell you what is feasible and what is not early enough.". This got me thinking, because I as a hobbyist am usually the whole "design team", the designer, the programmer and the artist. The moment I start developing a game Idea I also think about the feasibility. Do I have experience with the required technology? Will this work out from a performance perspective? Am I able to produce the required art so it at least looks/sounds ok? So very often if I try to stay realistic with my Ideas I end up being this guy. In the worst case I might end up missing an opportunity to make something unique only because I fell into the trap that the programmer in me tells me: "something like that hasn't been done before and there is possibly a performance/complexity/whatever reason for it".

So is being a programmer something that holds you back as a game designer? Or is it a good thing for "us amateurs" since it makes it more likely that we are actually end up making the game?

I hear more often than not that everyone needs to contribute beyond just design in order to get a project done. Whether this entails taking part in the actual creation of the game beyond design I do not know, as I am sure there are other tasks to be handled as well.

This paragraph directed towards larger scale games. I am of the opinion that a game shouldn't be designed by just one person, it should be a collaborated effort between multiple people. For one person to make all of the design decisions on a game without any input from third parties is a very dangerous path to travel. If like minded individuals can get together, know the pros and cons, and come to an understanding of what would work best before giving it a shot, more success would be had. I see too many times that people want to be Lead Designer using their ideas as absolute, but people shouldn't be so narrow minded. Being a designer should be enough. Find a premise to start from, get the people together to brainstorm and flesh out a concept, then continue on with the proper steps towards turning the concept into something more. Using a collaborated effort you may also encounter the possibility of having people that are more experienced in certain areas of the design, thus providing more knowledge to the overall design, helping it come together from the start.

If you can program enough to make draft quality games, you can use this to develop yourself as a designer.

Programming helps you become a better Game Designer because you understand how things work.