Julian Kogler, BA MA

What does your everyday life as a game designer look like? 

It varies greatly and depends heavily on the respective project phase. It always starts with a planning phase, which varies depending on whether it is your own project or a collaboration with an external company. After the contract negotiations, you usually meet at the client’s office for a meeting with the stakeholders, which can last several days. The aim is to define their goals, visions, and ideas in detail. Afterwards, the first design phase begins. Often, you work directly with designers – frequently on a whiteboard – to quickly filter out the basic structure and sketch out the fundamental gameplay. After that, you move on to the detailed elaboration, often in your home office. The focus here is on problem solving and concretising ideas. Depending on the project, I either work independently or in a team with my colleagues.

What exactly do you design? 

Games are interactive products, which means that game mechanics play a central role. When we work on existing games, often the controls and specific physics have already been established, e.g., how characters behave in the game. However, we often develop new game modes, which means new rules for how to win, how points are awarded, what players have to do and how they understand all of it. Depending on the project, we take on the programming, art design or level design. First, we clarify the concept together: What exactly needs to be implemented? This concept is then presented – usually in the form of a presentation – and must be approved, or ‘greenlit’, by all parties involved. Only then does production begin. During implementation, there are regular checkpoints and playtests to verify that the gaming experience actually works as planned. This is essential, especially for interactive products, as this is when weaknesses in the UI or usability often become apparent, which we then have to adjust. 

And how long does the game development process take? 

Game development is indeed very time-consuming. For us, a lot of things happen in annual cycles – especially with online games that remain active for a long time. For example, we regularly develop events that take place annually and expand the game with new features. Especially with live games, players eventually get bored if nothing changes. That’s why we regularly introduce new seasons or events that offer fresh gameplay – such as new game modes. Basically, it’s almost like a new game, but we build on the existing elements. After all, the community wants to continue playing their familiar game, but with new twists, different skills, or fresh challenges for different types of players. 

What skills do you need for this job? 

As a game designer, you need to know the market and games really well. You should understand what makes games exciting or entertaining and which mechanics are available. Often, you’ll use tried-and-tested elements – you can’t reinvent the wheel every time. At the same time, however, you have to work out what makes your game special: What do we want to focus on? What’s new? What sets our game apart from others? The following skills are key in game design: solving problems, recognising connections, keeping an eye on the big picture. You also need a certain amount of technical understanding – I don’t need to know much about programming, but I do need a basic understanding of scripting and art, which is important because you work closely with other departments. And as far as soft skills are concerned, you have to be able to put your ego aside, be open to better ideas, and communicate well. It’s about finding the best solution together – without letting conflicts arise. 

How do you design the content in your games? 

Either we receive an order from an external company, or in the case of internal projects, ideas often arise through brainstorming within the team. Then we look at the concepts and ask ourselves: It sounds good – but does it also play well? To find out, we need prototypes. And that in itself is often a business decision because prototyping costs resources. This raises the question: Is it worth it? You need target group analyses and market observation – ideally, all of this should happen before you even start the actual development. Making a successful game is extremely difficult. There are a huge number of games on the market and the games that ultimately gain visibility and success usually come from large studios with high marketing budgets. 

Are there methods you use to approach game design? 

Before you do anything else, it is important to understand what the customer really wants – it is essential. Often, what customers say is not exactly what they actually need. That is why it is important to listen carefully, ask questions and define the basic goals together. Why are we doing this project in the first place? If these goals are set early on, they can be referred to again and again as the project progresses. This makes many decisions easier later on. When developing the game, we then work with specific processes that are specially tailored to interactive products. One central concept is the idea of loops, cycles in which players move. For example, “60 Seconds of Fun”: What actions do you take in one minute? What is your rhythm? What skills or movements do you use – and how does that feel? In addition, we work with so-called “pillars”, which are the central elements of the game. They define what makes this game what it is and what we need to focus on. We usually define three such basic pillars, and these must not change during the course of development. All features and design decisions should be traceable back to these pillars. 

What do you remember from your Bachelor’s and Master’s studies? 

In my Bachelor’s studies, we focused heavily on usability, which I found really exciting. I remember that the degree programme was very broad in scope, which provided a little bit of everything and an overview of many different areas. That general atmosphere, that opportunity to dip your toes into different disciplines, was invaluable. Today, I realise how helpful that is: When an artist comes to me, I have a basic understanding of light, shadow and composition and can give constructive feedback. That’s invaluable when working together. 

The Master’s programme was completely different – smaller, more personal, more focused. There were fewer people, but they all had similar interests. There was more interaction, more personal responsibility. We did a lot of projects – just doing them, trying things out, designing. Looking back, I would say that the Bachelor’s degree was great for my personal development – it helped me find my bearings and discover what interests me. The Master’s degree gave me the space and time to really focus intensively on what I want to do.