Spring 2024

Designing A Video Game 

By Nathan Marvin

      Video games have been engraved into modern popular culture since their peak decade of the 1980’s. Everyone talks about franchises like Super Mario Brothers, Pac-man, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Kirby. But what about the process of making these games come to life? No matter if fans of gaming companies think that their work is good or bad, the reality is that making an entire video game isn’t easy, even for major companies like Nintedo or Sega who have been making video games for over 30 years respectively. But even you, if you don’t own any game companies, can create your own game. To learn about this, I talked to Rhythm Parker (pictured above), who also goes to CHAMPS. He is very experienced in the world of game design, and his words today can help you start creating your own video game.

  First of all, Rhythm said that the first thing to do before making a game is to take a while to think about the mechanics and gameplay. You also need to consider that nine times out of ten, your original ideas for your game will not be used in the final product. For example, if you have an idea to make a platformer with tons of different character mechanics and a wide screen resolution, it might be too big for your first-ever project. Not only is it enough to overwhelm you, but the platform that you're making your game on might not fit that massive project in your mind. As a real life example, before Sonic the Hedgehog was created Sega originally thought to make a game with a blue bunny that picked up items with his ears to throw at enemies. The idea was great, but they couldn’t fit all of the mechanics they wanted onto their Sega Genesis controller, so they scrapped the idea and moved on to create the iconic Sonic the Hedgehog we all know today. To put it simply, they scrapped the idea because it was too complicated. 

Now that you know how to start, you're going to want to know how production works. When working on a game, it really depends on the size of the project. Smaller games like the ones that indie companies do can take only one person to make. Bigger projects, like the ones that officially licensed video game companies like Nintendo produce, typically take teams of designers to produce. Large-scale games like GTA and the PlayStation Spiderman games take thousands of developers to produce. 

In conclusion, making a perfect game takes anywhere from a couple of months to many years. . One person might be able to make a game quickly, but it takes a game company at least a year to make a full game. We don’t even need to talk about how long it took to create Spiderman 2. The process might not be easy, but nobody said it wouldn’t be fun. If you're confident, and have the right materials and mindset, you can create one hell of a game.🐾