High Level Design Direction

I talk about the most important and most misunderstood job that a game director has to do, and that's inspect every element of the game to see if it serves the game's vision.

Videos I reference:

[Dawwwg]

Another aspect of not having a proper High Level Design Director / Direction is the 'Design by Committee' we've seen so much lately where almost everything is a compromise and thus shines in none of it's aspects ...

[soxs]

As someone that’s had to shut down some incoherent but very nice designs, I’ve never found how to describe it until I started watching your channel. We’re now planning on reusing those ideas in another project

[TransmentalMe]

Thanks for sharing so much educational content, dealing with design docs and concept art now.

[austin_bandit]

Frantically opened this as a level designer only to realize its "high level [break] design]" and not "high [break] level design". Which was dumb of me in retrospect but funny 😂

[alexanderwalter]

This is one of the most valuable videos done in total, and it should be a lesson for just every single designer und game director, creative director and else out there.

[drew_echo]

I was fortunate enough to learn the value of this very early on in my career. We had this one IC that was very adamant about everything we worked on being open source, implemented in Rust, the whole 9 yards. Those all have strong merits & can be great options, but just didn't mesh with what this company needed. He didn't take it well & started stirring things up with other teams / customers to force the matter until he unceremoniously parted ways with the company. It was a shame, because he was very talented and dependable otherwise, but he was so adamant about the 80% conforming to his goals that work became a toxic wasteland for everyone. My takeaway was that working towards the same goal can often be as, if not more, important than how well individuals can execute in isolation. If we have an n-way tug-of-war with very strong vectors, the sum of those vectors isn't very far from the center, vs a same number of small vectors in the same direction have a much larger sum.

[sperdper]

Hi Tim, its me, s00perd00per. This comment is unrelated to this video.

It looks like you have a lot of neat books and knickknacks in your background/office. Could we have a Fun Day Friday video that's like a show-and-tell? I wanna see 'em and know more about 'em.

[Benbobr]

Hey Tim I know its difficult but you must never forget that the comments section is an illusion that usually doesnt reflect the true avg perspective of a thing you talk about. I usually keep my mouth shut and just listen for example.

[NicoGonzalezEstevez]

Thank you, Tim, for putting up with our misunderstandings and never giving up on helping us understand. I really appreciate the effort!

[dandon]

4:54 somehow this reminded me of the poor game director that was vilivied in doublefine adventure documentary about psychonauts 2.

[Tearlach]

This is one thing I always kinda worry about when collaborating. Wrangling a host of creative people onto the same page seems easier and more difficult with tools available to teams now, but from a distance without the experience in that space, looks like herding cats.

[GammaCyber]

I think every game I've really strongly enjoyed had a strong cohesive vision. Understanding that a project director is both editor and "head visionary" helps me understand better the role that those directors had on the games I enjoy.

[HisLordshp]

"A large ship is steered by a small rudder". That's the "fun" part about building something with a vision, sometimes people have really good or cool ideas but if they don't fit the build then they don't fit. Normally my solution was to write those ideas down, and have the person who came up with it keep their work on reference for future projects.

[pedrorittner]

Ironically this is not exclusively a games industry problem, but in tech in general (moreso Big Tech, where I work). Because there's often a lot of autonomy even lower down the hierarchy, vision is key to ensuring everyone is aligned before execution starts. But breakdowns in communication are usually the problem that causes misalignment and then chaos.

[occupationalhazard]

"Hi, everybody. It's me, Tim." This phrase always puts a smile on my face. 😃

[TheBigYC]

Really important talk for people creating stuff in general.

[inamabilis]

This is a really great video for solo devs too. People can get piled in their ideas and not know when to put the good ones away for later.

[nathanrandolph]

Endless thanks to you for sharing all of your knowledge & experiences.

Your channel is one of the inspirations & a huge reason for my continued pursuit of making my own games.

Brainstorming multiple projects while I learn to program. Thanks again for me being a continuous source of inspiration & education

[LiraeNoir]

For those still not seeing it, I would suggest to look at behind the scenes or (good) making-off big movies, and the workflow around the director of the movie.
For example, look at Peter Jackson on LOTR and The Hobbit (which were bad, but the many hours of BTS/making off were extremely engaging even if problematic).
Every creative department come to him for approval of specific things, and will then go into production of that thing or quite often has to re-iterate following the notes given.
It's a mad job, but it's necessary for games following a strong vision. And when there is not one, where the game is designed by committee and tradition, well you get Ubisoft open world collectathon.

[GypsumGeneration]

you retelling the wildstar story here reminds me just how much i dislike the corporate fog of war. i've worked at places where the leadership was mortified at the level of communication and transparency prior leadership created, and needless to say i left soon after they dismantled what allowed us to make flexible and smart decisions.