Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
When I think of my talents, what I am naturally skilled at, I often come up short on a definite answer.

I hear this quite a lot from people who have never been in the industry, and that's usually because when people think about jobs in game development they often think only of the stereotypical 3:

  • Artist
  • Programmer
  • Composer/Sound designer

When actually there's a huge swathe of different skills needed to make a game, and based on what you've written in this post I'd initially think you were a narrative writer. 

Jobs I hear from other industry professionals:

  • Character Designer
  • Narrative Writer
  • Level Designer
  • Designer-scriptwriter (a designer who can do basic programming but can also interface with other designers or make their own design calls much better than pure programmers can). There's probably a better name for this one but I can't think of it right now. 
  • Engine programmer
  • Gameplay programmer
  • Sculpter & Character modeller
  • General modeller
  • Animator
  • VFX artist
  • Technical artist (like designer-scriptwriter but for art). 
  • Sound artist
  • Composer. 

There's probably more that have currently slipped my mind. Sidenote: it's rare for a person to do only one of these jobs outside of very large companies. 

Anyway, my point is that you shouldn't measure your skills based on some perceived required skills in the industry, you should instead look at the skills you do have (even if they seem unrelated) and say "how can I use these skills to make my game better"? 

Thank for your comment. From a personal development and career standpoint, I pretty much had to find my own path, away from the traditional road. I think that's important for everyone, and the same applies to one's love life. I shed more light on this in a upcoming development post.