Make games, not docs

What the talk is about

Sasha Protasenya argues that a game designer's main job is to make games, not documents, because the role is mostly communication with management, the team and players. Text carries meaning poorly: people encode and decode it differently, and interactivity is hard to describe in words. So a designer needs a "functional" skill set: design, animation, code and sound. The aim is not mastery but the ability to build a quick working sketch or prototype. The speaker offers simple tips: animate parts inside an engine rather than frame by frame; learn from ready-made tutorials and tweak them; record sounds with your own voice, and use simple sound generators and Audacity. The principle is that "simple" beats "correct". Documents remain useful for recording decisions and diagramming systems. The Q&A covers text-based games and tools built by programmers. Useful for aspiring game designers.