I Learned Game Design Backwards (and the feelings of self-doubt that succeeded)

"A real appreciation for poetry does not come from memorizing a bunch of poems, it comes from writing your own."  - Paul Lockhart, in A Mathematician's Lament

I know game design when I see it. I have played many, many games. I consider them my pastime, my hobby, and my passion. In fact, I have made a few games in a few different places. Yet, I can't shake off this feeling that I am not a game designer, or that I didn't learn it the right way.

I love game design. I read about game design. I know the words, the theory. I know what cognitive load means, or what endogenous value is. But look at my portfolio, at my pedigree, and you will see that it is meek, it is meager, and some may say, it is pitiful. 

I learned how to use Unity at a young age of 13-years-old, and I learned how to make games in Scratch at 11. In these platforms, I made a few fun, silly, small projects, and when I felt up to it I tuned into YouTube tutorials to make larger-scale games. I've made my fair share of platformers in Unity, as well as top-down shooters in Godot. I followed these tutorials to the tee, and through them I familiarized myself with various game engines and their quirks. It is only now that I realize I'd been learning how to develop games. Not how to design them. 

Somehow, it feels like I started with the most complex of tasks: understanding a development environment, and it is only now I am stripping away the complexities and viewing things in their most basic. Recently, my friends and I held a short discussion on how we would re-design the classic pen-and-paper game Tic-Tac-Toe. Many ideas were thrown around, but my friends were able to throw their hats into the ring quick and early. I participated in the discussion, seriously considering their ideas and even testing them myself. However, I took hours to come up with an idea on how I'd re-design such a simple game, and even then I don't think it's any good. There is this inescapable notion in my mind that my friends are more capable of coming up with off-the-dome creative game design ideas than me, even when I've spent so much of my life dedicating myself to the craft. But then, I remember: I learned to develop before design. I learned what a RigidBody2D is before I gave any meaningful consideration to goals, or balance, or fun.

A feeling of hopelessness washes over me as I confess these realizations. Maybe I am more of a game developer than a game designer, rendering me as less capable (perhaps even inhibited) when it comes to the more "creative expression" side of gaming's architecture, dooming me to just being one who carries out ideas, rather than one who makes them. 

In the midst of all this self-doubt and restlessness, I remember that there are really only two steps to become a game designer. First is to believe that I am. If you find yourself in a similar spot as I, be it in the field of game design or otherwise, know that you must believe you are who you are. If you want to be an artist, believe — know — that you are one. The very fact that you desire to be one means you are one. It may seem like delusion, but really, when it comes to mastering skills, all of us fulfill our own prophecies. 

The second step for me (and you, if you find yourself in a similar scenario) is to practice, practice, and practice. Engage with the artform. Self-belief is how one becomes one. Practice is how one molds one. It's as the jugglers say,

“If you aren’t dropping, you aren’t learning. And if you aren’t learning, you aren’t a juggler.” 

This post is a brief moment of wavering self-confidence on my part, and if you too feel any sense of self-doubt, I hope you can see that you aren't alone. In case you need to hear this: you are a creative, even if you feel like you're not. Me, personally? I'm not looking for words of affirmation. I just need to go out there and make some fucking games.