Interview Questions For Video Game Designer

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game designer Interview Questions

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game designer interview questions shared by candidates

Top Interview Questions

Naughty Dog

A player cannot move up a slope with an angle > 45 degrees, how do you check if the slope is too steep?

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Check the angle between the two vectors being the players forward direction lets call it A, and the direction of the slope lets call it B. angle = cos-1( A dot B / magnitude of A * magnitude of B). Check if the angle is greater than or less than 45 degrees. Less

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I passed the first round of interview, and the answer I gave was: Take the upright direction vector(negative gravity) and the normal vector of the surface of the terrain. Find the dot product of those vectors (both normalized) and depending on it's value (-1 to 1) you can decide whether the angle is too steep. Less

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Dumadu Games

What is hyper-casual games ?

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A hyper-casual game is a mobile video game which is easy-to-play and usually free-to-play; they also feature very minimalistic user interfaces. Popularized in 2017 by game makers such as Kwalee, Ketchapp and Voodoo, these games can be quickly played after downloading, usually without any tutorial or instructions Less

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hyper-casual game is a mobile video game which is easy-to-play and usually free-to-play; they also feature very minimalistic user interfaces. Popularized in 2017 by game makers such as Kwalee, Ketchapp and Voodoo, these games can be quickly played after downloading, usually without any tutorial or instructions Less

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Blizzard Entertainment

What skills would you provide to X character? This question is difficult to answer quickly and there were plenty of them.

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Like most interview questions, this is just high level. It's seeing if you're willing to be risky with your choices and if the abilities/features are creative, fun, and able to be balanced. No specifics, can be wrong, but it's again just trying to see if you're very safe/conventional or risky/imaginative. Less

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This seems like they were challenging your starting point. Sure, when something is established anybody can create. But something truly difficult is creating a unique and fresh idea and building upon it. This is how the majority of the small games I've concepted started. If you aren't having fun doing it, will it be fun for the player? Time is money, thus for making time all that more valuable in the game industry. Less

Dire Wolf Digital

Too many to relate. The standout for me though: Are you more of a Den Mother or a Drill Sergeant?

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I default to Den Mother, but have performed both roles. Told about the time where I had to hold a distant cousin who served under me accountable for his repeated tardiness, eventually leading to him getting booted from the Air Force. Was met with "We're looking for more of a Drill Sergeant." Less

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The "owner" is very much stuck in the 1999's "beat the workers until morale improves " style of management. Even if you say you can manage appropriately for the situation - as soon as you said den mother, it was over for you. Think about it though - good products or not - is that the kind of place you want to work? Less

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It's still my first pick. The military has something of a late 70s early 80s style to its management, though I'd argue its leadership is more ahead of the curve. Workers there are viewed as interchangeable parts and an up or out mentality prevails. A task master would still be a comfortable upgrade to the personnel management systems documented in DOPMA. I think you're right though. Perhaps a more hard -a-- line would have communicated my "buck stops here" approach. Next year will be different. Less

Schell Games

The initial interview was very free form. We spoke a lot about games, recent and all time favorite games of mine, and design aspects thereof.

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Sure, although I'm sorry if this comment comes too late for your consideration. One thing that Schell likes to pride itself on, and that you will hear over and over again, is about the work-life balance and the freedom that it gives its employees. They really stress that, unlike other game companies, their culture is not one in which you are expected to put in more time than scheduled, and that they view overtime as a production failure. During the interview process they will also talk at length about their employees other time-consuming pursuits to drive this point home; "time-consuming pursuits" including things like second jobs (because Schell is also known for not paying well) and personal game development projects. Despite being very keen on the position, when it became clear that Schell's compensation offer would not be high enough for my needs, I made the (foolish?) decision to disclose that I would be among the ranks of their employees working a second job (on a flexible schedule that in no way conflicted with their relatively fixed work schedule). Apparently that's a fact that you have to conceal unless you're already working for them, because after that they rescinded the job offer. I found it duplicitous and disrespectful given the fact that, in the course of my day-long site visit, so much emphasis was put on respecting the holistic picture of their employees time and the fact that other employees have other jobs (including the CEO himself lol) was mentioned repeatedly. Less

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I am writing this interview review to warn people--despite the company taking aggressive pride in the freedom it allows its employees to do things on their own time, and to not force an undue burden on the work side of work-life balance, do not speak about things you wish to do on your own time that may keep you busy. This will be cause for them to rescind a job offer after it's already been made, which is what happened to me. It was incredibly duplicitous and disrespectful. Less

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Are you able to elaborate more on what happened? I am considering a job with them and would love to know more specifics before I make the decision to move across the country for this offer. Less

Gram Games

Was asked to take a couple of hours and provide a concept that's a "twist on Clash of Clans". Was then asked to take another hour to refine the design.

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They were almost closing the studio when they got lucky and got a successful game. They made some money and now they just think they are great and have the best culture in the world. What they do now is make fast prototypes and launch it on the stores just to see if they stick, and if they do then they make a better version of them. I'm pretty sure that they will close the new studio in the near future if they don't change their mentality and put their feet on the ground. Less

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Designed a concept where PvP would take place in person on a real map. Paraphrasing here, but was basically told "nobody would want to go outside to play PvP" (Pokemon Go and Ingress players are nobody apparently) and "I wouldn't play this instead of CoC" (I wouldn't play my 4 pages of sketches over CoC either to be fair) by way of critique. The new design was met with "this sounds promising, but not the easiest game to make". In addition to a production-ready market-beating guaranteed top grossing sensation, this needed to be the utmost breeze to develop, you see. Less

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Absolutely hysterical... how are these guys still in business?

Dumadu Games

What is Fun?

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Look up for Raph Koster or any other noteworthy theories and render it in your own words Less

Permeative Technologies

How will you manage a person who is not co-operative??

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We have read about the person mind then its easy to convey him ex:if he say anything we have to accept that bcz he was our client we have to make him happy with our works. Less

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We have read about the person mind then its easy to convey him ex:if he say anything we have to accept that bcz he was our client we have to make him happy with our works. Less

Electronic Arts

Why do you want to work at EA?

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Developing games and software

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Simply Developing games and software

Zynga

"What all do you put in a game design document?"

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Mechanics, Character Bios, Target Audience, Platform, User Interface sketches, Plot, Level descriptions Less

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A Game Design Document acts as a bible for the production house. What it includes is: -Overview of the game - explain your game in 500 words. -Target Audience - get some robust market data -Market research - similar games, what is lacking, what can be an inspiration. -Parameters - platforms, genre, single player, multiplayer and features at a glance -Story, plot, USP of the game, -Game mechanics, game flow, structure, GUI, user interactions, core loop, economy models, level progression mechanics, DDA, control systems, AI, scoring system, front-end and back-end design structure, data communications, API integration etc. -characterization, art style, environments, level design, level progression metrics, animations -sound design, content mapping, dialogue narratives, -code structures, social interactivity -production methodology, future road map, - post production schedule - strategy for game balancing, tweaking, power-proto testing etc. Less

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