{"id":997,"date":"2014-04-21T13:07:54","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T20:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/?p=997"},"modified":"2025-02-21T12:22:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T17:22:29","slug":"the-door-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/the-door-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Door Problem&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">&#8220;So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you&#8217;re a programmer?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that&#8217;s about as clear as the &#8220;astrophysicist&#8221; job title is to me. It&#8217;s also my job, so I find myself explaining what game design means to a lot of people from different backgrounds, some of whom don&#8217;t know anything about games.<\/p>\n<h2>The Door Problem<\/h2>\n<p>I like to describe my job in terms of &#8220;The Door Problem&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Premise: You are making a game.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are there doors in your game?<\/li>\n<li>Can the player open them?<\/li>\n<li>Can the player open every door in the game?<\/li>\n<li>Or are some doors for decoration?<\/li>\n<li>How does the player know the difference?<\/li>\n<li>Are doors you can open green and ones you can&#8217;t red? Is there trash piled up in front of doors you can&#8217;t use? Did you just remove the doorknobs and call it a day?<\/li>\n<li>Can doors be locked and unlocked?<\/li>\n<li>What tells a player a door is locked and will open, as opposed to a door that they will never open?<\/li>\n<li>Does a player know how to unlock a door? Do they need a key? To hack a console? To solve a puzzle? To wait until a story moment passes?<\/li>\n<li>Are there doors that can open but the player can never enter them?<\/li>\n<li>Where do enemies come from? Do they run in from doors? Do those doors lock afterwards?<\/li>\n<li>How does the player open a door? Do they just walk up to it and it slides open? Does it swing open? Does the player have to press a button to open it?<\/li>\n<li>Do doors lock behind the player?<\/li>\n<li>What happens if there are two players? Does it only lock after both players pass through the door?<\/li>\n<li>What if the level is REALLY BIG and can&#8217;t all exist at the same time? If one player stays behind, the floor might disappear from under them. What do you do?<\/li>\n<li>Do you stop one player from progressing any further until both are together in the same room?<\/li>\n<li>Do you teleport the player that stayed behind?<\/li>\n<li>What size is a door?<\/li>\n<li>Does it have to be big enough for a player to get through?<\/li>\n<li>What about co-op players? What if player 1 is standing in the doorway &#8211; does that block player 2?<\/li>\n<li>What about allies following you? How many of them need to get through the door without getting stuck?<\/li>\n<li>What about enemies? Do mini-bosses that are larger than a person also need to fit through the door?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s a pretty classic design problem. SOMEONE has to solve The Door Problem, and that someone is a designer.<\/p>\n<h2>The Other Door Problems<\/h2>\n<p>To help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Creative Director<\/span>: &#8220;Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Project Manager<\/strong>: &#8220;I&#8217;ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Designer<\/span>: &#8220;I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Concept Artist<\/span>: &#8220;I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Art Director<\/span>: &#8220;This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Environment Artist<\/span>: &#8220;I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Animator<\/span>: &#8220;I made the door open and close.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sound Designer<\/strong>: &#8220;I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Audio Engineer<\/strong>: &#8220;The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Composer<\/strong>: &#8220;I created a theme song for the\u00a0door.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">FX Artist<\/span>: &#8220;I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Writer<\/strong>: &#8220;When the door opens, the player will say, &#8216;Hey look! The door opened!&#8217; &#8220;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lighter<\/span>: &#8220;There is a bright red light over the door when it&#8217;s locked, and a green one when it&#8217;s opened.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Legal<\/span>: &#8220;The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don&#8217;t want to be sued.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Character Artist<\/strong>: &#8220;I don&#8217;t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gameplay Programmer<\/span>: &#8220;This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>AI Programmer:<\/strong> &#8220;Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Network\u00a0Programmer:<\/strong> &#8220;Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Release Engineer<\/strong>: &#8220;You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Core Engine Programmer:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tools Programmer:<\/strong> &#8220;I made it even easier for you to place doors.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Level Designer<\/span>: &#8220;I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>UI Designer<\/strong>: &#8220;There&#8217;s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Combat Designer<\/strong>: &#8220;Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Systems\u00a0Designer<\/strong>: &#8220;A\u00a0level 4 player\u00a0earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Monetization Designer<\/strong>: &#8220;We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">QA Tester<\/span>: &#8220;I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to\u00a0the door. I threw grenades at the door.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>UX \/ Usability Researcher<\/strong>: &#8220;I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop\u00a0up.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u00a0Localization<\/strong>: &#8220;Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte.\u00a0T\u00fcr. D\u00f8r. Deur. Drzwi. Drws.\u00a0\ubb38&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Producer<\/strong>: &#8220;Do we need to give everyone those\u00a0doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Publisher<\/strong>: &#8220;Those doors\u00a0are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>CEO:<\/strong> &#8220;I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>PR<\/strong>: &#8220;To all our fans, you&#8217;re going to go\u00a0crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Community Manager<\/strong>: &#8220;I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming\u00a0patch.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customer Support<\/strong>: &#8220;A player contacted us,\u00a0confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Player<\/span>: &#8220;I totally didn&#8217;t even notice a door there.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of the reasons I like this example is because it&#8217;s so mundane. There&#8217;s an impression that game design is flashy and cool and about crazy ideas and fun all the time. But when I start off with, &#8220;Let me tell you about doors&#8230;&#8221; it cuts straight to the everyday practical considerations.<\/p>\n<p><em>Recent edits:\u00a0Added\u00a0localization, character artist, system designer, combat designer, composer, audio engineer, monetization designer, and I think that&#8217;ll be it for now.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you&#8217;re a programmer?&#8221; Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that&#8217;s &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/the-door-problem\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The Door Problem&#8221;<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,17,16,18,20],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theory-practice","tag-education","tag-game-design","tag-games-2","tag-intro-to-games","tag-roles"],"featured_image_src":"","featured_image_src_square":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Liz England","author_link":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/author\/liz-england\/"},"rbea_author_info":{"display_name":"Liz England","author_link":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/author\/liz-england\/"},"rbea_excerpt_info":"&#8220;So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you&#8217;re a programmer?&#8221; Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that&#8217;s &hellip;<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/the-door-problem\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The Door Problem&#8221;<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>","category_list":"<a href=\"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/category\/theory-practice\/\">Theory &amp; Practice<\/a>","comments_num":"135 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2001,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/2001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizengland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}