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Comment by consz | Hacker News Reader

Is there any reason to believe this 'soul' you're talking about has to come from the programmers? It's not clear to me that the designers of the game, and the programmers of that design, have any overlap in people -- and just because the programmers get replaced by contractors, it's not clear that the designers do, as well.

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In the past games were made less like manufaturies with everybody polishing an itsy-little-bit of the product. In the past, when games were smaller teams were more crossfunctional: programmers also were somewhat designers, and the game manufacturing was less of a process involving silos.

That doesn't really answer his question. In today's world, if you hired passionate designers and outsourced talented (but not necessarily passionate) programmers, wouldn't you still end up with a quality game?

Isn't that kind of what happened with Daikatana?

I would argue that having the designer put the "heart and soul" into a game is possible, but not ideal. When an artist or developer is also a/the designer they can make changes and decisions more smoothly to create certain effects.

There is no way a game like the first Portal could have been designed by a game designer, it started as a research project by a developer. Then there are games that do very innovative with the art blending it seamlessly into the design in unconventional ways, like Antechamber. I think there are plenty examples of games that buck the mold too hard for a conventional designer to have been able to make them.

My favorite example is Minecraft and its procedurally generated infinite world, much of the art is in algorithms that create the biomes. Cresting the top of a mountain to see the scenery on the other side for the first time is so simple to do and easy to enjoy in this game. The programmer had to be the designer and the artist to pull this off. I know Notch worked with others but this one facet had to be singular or iterative, not communicated from someone seperate after "designing". This was communicated in code and programmers and artist saw what existed and tried to build something and sharing. There is no good way for a conventional designer to convey the details of an algorithm to build forests and cave systems. It is not a fundamentally unsolvable problem, it is just presently unsolved in my experience.

This is what I tried to express. You can get a quality game. But you may not get a game that people will love, will replay to discover nice little things. The game will be like a movie you watch only once. You pay for it. You get a decent product. You are happy, but you won't feel that itch to take a look at it again. Or you may, but the chances are slimmer in my opinion.

"if you hired passionate designers and outsourced talented (but not necessarily passionate) programmers, wouldn't you still end up with a quality game?"

Perhaps, for certain types of games. But for many types of games there's this subtle overlap between design and programming that defines how the game "feels" to play.

eg. How do digital/analog sampled inputs exactly map to character movement and camera control.

This is an area where having a small core group that understands the technology at play but also has a handle on the design side of how to implement for "fun" can be a huge difference maker.

From a high level design point of view, most action "platform" games have basically the same controls. But anyone who has played, say, Nintendo's Mario games versus most other platform games realizes there is some special sauce in the "feel" of the character movement that is equal parts design and programming/low-level-implementation that wouldn't get conveyed properly in a higher level outsource-ready design document.

I agree with the parent comment, but also agree that "soul" could come from writing, voice talent, assets, etc. Deus Ex and Mass Effect are two games I can think of that offer an amazing experience, despite the actual programmed game being fairly shallow. They were unique and well written, which was enough.

Indeed, but I find that large games which try to tell stories may be well written, but are not so appealing to me as smaller (often indie) games.

If I want to be told stories I usually prefer books, films. (Though I liked Baldur's Gate for eg. which is an opposite of what I usually prefer)

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