Module 4: Designing vs. Programming (Lessons 4-5)

Lesson 4 Transcript

So now we’re going to talk about what a sound engineer is and what they do, because it’s not usually just going out and fetching sound effects and music and putting them in your game, although sometimes that is what they do because the sound engineer is responsible for everything you’re going to hear in your game.

But the sound engineer’s role goes way beyond that because they need to understand what emotion the game is currently trying to get the player to feel and align the music and the effects along with that. And that is a much harder said than done.

A good sound engineer is worth their weight in gold because the audio that the player hears in the game really enforces what they’re supposed to be feeling and doing and interacting with while they play, and it goes such a long way. Sometimes sound engineers will find sound bites online and use them just as they are.

That’s not a very common thing though, because they’re going to want to tweak it to fit exactly your game, whether that be changing the pitch, the length, reverberating it, or doing lots of other things. They have to fit it just to your game.

When it comes to music, creating music that is lable, that can play an infinite amount of times, depending on what the player is doing in the certain scenario is really hard, and they’re responsible for making sure that it functions well, sounds good, and doesn’t have any weird glitches when it’s looping between itself or other tracks inside of your game.

The sound engineer is crucial to having an awesome game.

I know for me, I often forget to add sound effects and music until the end, but every time I do, it just makes any game I’m working on. Whether it’s a small project or a large one, it makes it sound and feel much more like a game. So don’t forget, sound and sound.

Engineers should never be overrated because anybody can be one, but not everyone can be a great one. Up next we’re going to talk about the manager position.

Lesson 5 Transcript

A manager in a video game company is a little bit different than a manager in say, a retail organization. A game manager has to make sure that they understand all of the roles that they have underneath them.

So that means having a little bit of experience in everything we just talked about. The more experience that they have in those roles, the better they’re going to be at facilitating communication between everyone and making sure that everyone stays on task because the manager has to make sure that the game is coming along at the right pace.

This can be really hard to do when it comes to coding and artistic endeavors because it can be really difficult to judge the time and the money that it’s going to take to do these things. But that’s the job of the manager. They have to make sure that the investment of money from wherever that came from and the timeline that was set up is being met properly.

A lot of times the manager is going to be the go-to between higher-ups who are funding it, depending on if you’re in a larger game studio or just the investment from people that paid into it. If you’ve got funding from an outside source or they’re just going to be someone who’s on the team that was dedicated to being manager and just saying:

Hey guys, we need to keep going. We need to drop this because it’s not essential and we need to focus on this because the game won’t run without it.

So sometimes the manager will have a specific role and sometimes they’ll just be someone on the team that is making sure everyone stays on task and works on the most important things first. So a manager is really important, kind of like the sound engineer.

Anybody can be a manager, but to be a good manager, they need to be able to listen and communicate in ways that people actually understand and respect.

It’s a very hard role to get right and a very easy one to get wrong. I’ve had really bad managers in my life and you probably have as well, although if not, you’ve probably seen bad management and thought to yourself, yeah, I could do better than that.

So that’s what a manager is in a games company. They’ve got to make sure the game stays on track and gets moving forward on the right timeline. And now we’ve looked at the most common roles in game development. There are still others out there, but for the most part, these roles are going to filter down into everything else that you do.

If you get into specific roles like UX, which is user experience, sometimes that’s going to be the artist or the game designer or the manager, making sure that those things fit in. You can hire specific people for very specific roles if you have a large company, but otherwise, these roles are going to be the primary ones that you work with.

And then everyone’s just going to pitch in and do what they can when it’s time for the game to get ready to launch.

And so up next we’re going to start working on our next game, which is going to be an awesome space arcade adventure. You’re going to learn a lot, and the game we’re going to make is really, really cool. I’m really excited and I hope you are too. So I’ll see you there.