Daniel Noah Halpern - Becoming a Video Game Designer

M ASTERS AT W ORK

B ECOMING A N EUROSURGEON

B ECOMING A V ETERINARIAN

B ECOMING A V ENTURE CAPITALIST

B ECOMING A H AIRSTYLIST

B ECOMING A R EAL E STATE A GENT

B ECOMING A M ARINE B IOLOGIST

B ECOMING AN E THICAL H ACKER

B ECOMING A L IFE C OACH

B ECOMING A Y OGA I NSTRUCTOR

B ECOMING A R ESTAURATEUR

B ECOMING A P RIVATE I NVESTIGATOR

B ECOMING A B AKER

ALSO AVAILABLE

B ECOMING A S OMMELIER

B ECOMING A C URATOR

B ECOMING AN A RCHITECT

B ECOMING A F ASHION D ESIGNER

B ECOMING A S PORTS A GENT

B ECOMING AN I NTERIOR D ESIGNER

B ECOMING A F IREFIGHTER

B ECOMING A N URSE

B ECOMING A V IDEO G AME D ESIGNER

B ECOMING A M IDWIFE

B ECOMING A T EACHER

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition December 2020

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Halpern, Daniel Noah, author. Title: Becoming a video game designer / Daniel Noah Halpern. Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2020. | Series: Masters at work | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2020032868 (print) | LCCN 2020032869 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982137939 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982137946 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Video game designersVocational guidanceUnited States. | Video gamesDesign. Classification: LCC GV1469.3 .H353 2020 (print) | LCC GV1469.3 (ebook) | DDC 794.8/1535dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032868 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032869

ISBN 978-1-9821-3793-9

ISBN 978-1-9821-3794-6 (ebook)

F OR C HRISTINA

H ere are three moments, from three universes:

First: the Unkillable Demon King has taken the form of Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork, for battle. He knows theyve won when he traps Kuro for his partners backdoor gank. Its all over once they kill Baron and wipe the other team out of the top lane. Afterward, he eats a chocolate bar. This is 2016, or no time at all.

Then: Poncho jacks in after picking up the contract. Once shes in the matrix, on the boat, she lowers the railing, deploys a launcher, launches herself to the airship. Three minutes through the door to do the job. At the elevator shaft she gets out the autocase, deck, and CCTV module, punches in setpos 699-32-206 to aim the autocase, exits the aimbot, and enters the blink. The trunklines in the Psychocortical Practice Room, whatever that is; she connects the phone to the deck, downloads it, scrams. Its only later, after shes jumped back to the Farfig, that she realizes shes forgotten to grab the autocase, left it behind. Shes getting older, a little tired. This is 1980, or no time at all.

And finally: 14.Bxe7 Qb6 15.Bc4 Nxc3 16.Bc5 Rfe8+ 17.Kf1 Be6!! That was, almost indisputably, 1956.

You are forgiven if you do not know where you are. Only with time will a universe teach you to navigate inside its borders.

The first universe you are observing is the world of Runeterra. Runeterra is the setting for League of Legends, which, in what is often referred to as the real world, is a tremendously popular free-to-play video game. League of Legends requires you to choose a champion as your digital proxy and then team up with four other players in order to kill five opponents, as well as avoid or defeat other murderous obstacles, all within a fantasy realm of dragons and swords and magic fireballs. This particular instant is split in two, half taking place in Runeterra and half back here on earth: the moment of victory by this worlds most famous professional League of Legends player, a young South Korean named Lee Sang-hyeok, also known as Faker, also known as the Unkillable Demon King, in the semifinals of the e-sports 2016 League of Legends World Championship.

The second universe begins in a place called Nuevos Aires and continues into a virtual reality within it. This is the video game Quadrilateral Cowboy, a cyberpunk hacking game that asks you to commit a series of heists on contract, using a computer you build to enter a matrix within the matrixa digital world within its digital world. Your exploits begin on New Years Eve as 1979 recedes and the 80s approach, somewhere within the early morning of cyberspace. Youas Ponchoget your assignment, case the job, log on with your portable deck and launcher and lantern, and enter the cyberspatial target. You have two friends and colleagues, Lou and Maisy; you have a square head and blue hair and a portable Vinylman to play your favorite records; you have three seconds to disarm the lasers and sneak in.

The third universe isnt a universe at all, really. Its chess. This is the moment a thirteen-year-old Bobby Fischer sacrificed his queen to his opponent, Donald Byrne, then one of the top-rated adult players in the country, a shocking and brilliant move that led Fischer to victory and to the beginning of his legend.

That is the experience of beginning to play a new game: What is this place? How does it work? What is the language they speak here? Gank, blink, check. Oh! He took my pawn! Oh look, I can fly if I eat the green thing. Oh look, if I hit the space bar I jump up. Oh, see that, Iwait, how did I die?

The gods and minor divinities who make these universes have many names, but the ones who choose how the universe, also known as the game, will work are game designers. How does the rook move, can you launch yourself through space, and, wait, how do you stop? Do you remain invisible when you hide in the weeds, and can you try to jump out to kill another champion from behind? Game designers invent the things you can do in games, and they decide what you cant. They decide whether you can castle your king and rook just to the left, or both to the left and the right; whether you can pick up a vase and break the window of a doorless room youve been stuck in for too long. They create and adjust the rules of a universe youve chosen to enter. They decide if you can fly or not. They decide if you can talk to your friends or if you float around deaf and mute. They decide that you must murder an innocent little girl if you want the slug that lives inside her and which will give you great power to defeat your enemies. They decide that you cannot pass, that you cannot understand, that you cannot know, that you must die here, in this place. But they also decide that you canyou can understand, you can know. They make a door just for you and refuse to let you enter by it. They make a hole for you to jump through. Theyre the reason so many people come here to live. That is, to play.