Ed Byrne

There are many reasons to always be learning, but a major reason is communication. Design _is_ communication: you almost always require the help or skills of others to make your design a reality, and they will need you to describe your design effectively. Even if you're designing something simple to make by yourself, that's self-communication between parts of your brain. So, in order to communicate well, you need to connect with others, through shared experience, language or knowledge. This is why it is so important to always be curious and learning as a Designer. The more you absorb, the better you will be able to communicate with (and understand) collaborators of different disciplines, skillsets, genres, products and backgrounds.

I used to strongly advocate (in the days of printed résumés) to keep everything to one page. However now that most are received and reviewed online, exact length isn't the razor it was. Instead, I'd suggest always aiming for a page but more importantly: - Focus on your most recent experience. I tend to have the bulk of my experience descriptions for the last few positions I held. - Eliminate any design or layout wizardry that unnecessarily pads out your pages. - Bullet lists avoid needing too much descriptive text or fancy grammar. Ultimately treat your résumé like a design spec: it should be concise, and not require any unnecessary work for the reader to digest it. It's your ticket to an interview, not the interview itself.

This is a tricky balance. It can be a huge boon to have a dedicated group of players you can turn to for opinions, evaluation of builds and prototypes and feedback, often immediately or on demand. However, on the flipside, a small cohort of players will not represent the entirety of your eventual audience. There's a trap where if you are co-designing or leaning on a player group too much, you can often lose perspective, pushing to address the needs of a group that may (for example) represent a much higher skill level than average, or who don't represent accessibility or onboarding needs of less familiar players. Just be aware of over- or under-biasing when involving external users, especially when balancing your systems.

Interpersonal and strategic skills are crucial when moving into Leadership. You can be the best level designer in the Universe but leadership is about empowering others to do their best work, often at the expense of performing hands-on creative work yourself. As a prospective level design lead I'd recommend: - Being able to critically review peer's levels and deliver feedback in a constructive and collaborative manner, avoiding negativity and blame. - Understanding how to look at a level objectively: using player feedback, playtest data and peers' critique to scope and rebuild levels successfully. - Knowing how to balance the needs of your studio: player retention, revenue models and long-term product goals with your own creative goals

Given that the design and development process in games is highly iterative and explorative, it's easy to get overwhelmed with uncertainty. Especially in the middle of production where your original plans may start to look like they're not what the game "wants to be", or aren't resonating with your players. In these cases you have to trust the process - building, testing, refining, even reinventing. I will often say "If I have a great team, and a great process, I may no _know_ what the game is going to be... but I know it'll be fun". Many years ago I put this forward at GDC but a key formula against uncertainty for me are the "Four T's" - Tools, Time, Talent and Trust.