Skip to main content

Design Test Questions

  • ‘When it’s cold outside, am I hear in vain?’ The first of IGDA Sydney’s new events coined: “Bits & Pieces” took place on a chilly 9th of August 2011 at The Arthouse Hotel’s attic bar to the crowd of approximately 100 local game developers, if…

  • In BittersBBB Episode 002, we look at Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 to discover how Core game Elements are Introduced at the outset of the game.

    BittersBBB is my somewhat new project where I aim to analyse/deconstruct a game along the lines of a…

  • Moving Target Games – March

    Deadlines, demos and development.

    Moving Target Games Team

    Andrew Bittman – Project Manager / Designer
    Matthew Tuxworth – Game Programmer
    Craig Peebles – Audio Programmer
    Roberto…

  • Moving Target Games – February

    I think this is our first report since August, and yes, I plan to do these monthly, at least, this time. Probably more when we get the full website up, but moving on to the report:

    Moving Target Team…

Submitted by Bittman on
Forum

Whether you know some from a test you've taken or found, or whether you have your own which might address design issues, post them here. I've recently taken to trying to answer a few questions which might commonly pop-up in Design Tests during interviews, especially considering I feel my answers for the design test I took recently must not have hit the mark the studio was looking for.

I'd appreciate if this was just a thread of questions, but if you do want to reply to one feel free to post, it's always good to see other's viewpoints.

Here are some questions I found on some random internet blog somewhere (can't remember the link now):

1.Describe the relevant differences between a PC gaming experience and a console gaming experience. How do these differences, if any, affect how you would design a game?
2.What do most people mean when they mention or ask for non-linear missions, and what are the best ways to provide this?
3.Halo, GTA3, and Battlefield 1942 are all examples of games with multi-modal gameplay, whereas Quake, Project Gotham Racing, and MechWarrior are not. What does multi-modal gameplay mean? What design considerations do you need to make to incorporate multi-modal gameplay in your game or mission?
4.What are the design considerations between single-player and multiplayer levels/maps?
5.Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are 2 very PC-centric game genres with extremely successful games. Describe how you would redesign the controls and interface for one of these popular games (Age of Empires, StarCraft, WarCraft, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, etc.) and make it usable and fun using the Xbox controller, and discuss the considerations that would have to be made to redesign the game.
6.What mission/level design considerations do you need to keep in mind when designing a 3-D flying game? What is unique about them from a design perspective (for example, as opposed to a First Person Shooter)?

I'll probably post some of my own creation later.

Posted by Bittman on
Forum

Whether you know some from a test you've taken or found, or whether you have your own which might address design issues, post them here. I've recently taken to trying to answer a few questions which might commonly pop-up in Design Tests during interviews, especially considering I feel my answers for the design test I took recently must not have hit the mark the studio was looking for.

I'd appreciate if this was just a thread of questions, but if you do want to reply to one feel free to post, it's always good to see other's viewpoints.

Here are some questions I found on some random internet blog somewhere (can't remember the link now):

1.Describe the relevant differences between a PC gaming experience and a console gaming experience. How do these differences, if any, affect how you would design a game?
2.What do most people mean when they mention or ask for non-linear missions, and what are the best ways to provide this?
3.Halo, GTA3, and Battlefield 1942 are all examples of games with multi-modal gameplay, whereas Quake, Project Gotham Racing, and MechWarrior are not. What does multi-modal gameplay mean? What design considerations do you need to make to incorporate multi-modal gameplay in your game or mission?
4.What are the design considerations between single-player and multiplayer levels/maps?
5.Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) are 2 very PC-centric game genres with extremely successful games. Describe how you would redesign the controls and interface for one of these popular games (Age of Empires, StarCraft, WarCraft, EverQuest, Asheron's Call, etc.) and make it usable and fun using the Xbox controller, and discuss the considerations that would have to be made to redesign the game.
6.What mission/level design considerations do you need to keep in mind when designing a 3-D flying game? What is unique about them from a design perspective (for example, as opposed to a First Person Shooter)?

I'll probably post some of my own creation later.