Designers are the people in the industry who make the blueprint for a game. What designers do can range from the way a level is laid out and played and what certain enemies can and cannot do, to the mechanics of the game that the player will never even see. Designers do a lot of research and a lot of writing about game flow mechanics and level details. We work in 3D programs such as Maya, Unreal and 3D Studio Max. That way, once we have designed a level on paper we can create a 3D mock up of it to get a sense of scale and a feel for what it would be like when the player runs through it.

Every day we have meetings as a team where we talk about our daily tasks and the previous day's progress. We sit down and brainstorm during the early phases of a game in development. Initially, most of it is writing and drawings on paper. This is the phase where your brain, a pad of paper, a pencil, and lots of erasers will become your best friends. You can spend everyday for a week designing a level, and by the time your happy with it and you think it's finished, you have to go back to the drawing board and redesign the whole thing. A lot of a designers' job is taking two steps forward, and then two steps back. Yet every once in a while, you get to take a giant leap forward.

Later on down the line, when a design has been approved, we create a mock up of our level called "Designer Geometry". These usually have no textures and no real detail in the level, and they are just as basic as you can get. It's more of a testing ground to see if the level works, or if it needs changes to make it work. When that's done, we hand it off to the artist and they add the detail to the environment.

The Technical Designers (or TD's as we call them) also take a crack at the level, including all of the physics, and they add bonuses to the level like thunder and lightning, rain, and destructible props. The cinematics team then adds all of the movies for that level, followed by the programmers who add all of the scripted events and make sure nothing breaks. At some point, enemies and AI are also added to the level so the player has something to shoot.

When everything is done, we have a finished level that is ready to be "shipped," that is put in the final game. It's quite an experience to see a level that you designed on paper and poured endless energy into become a fully playable finished level.