Top 20 Game Designer Interview Questions & Answers in 2024

Editorial Team

Game Designer Interview Questions & Answers

Who is a game designer? This is a person who invents a game concept, its central mechanism, and its rules.

Below are the top 20 Questions and answers a game designer is likely to face at the interview.

1.     Why Are You Interested In This Role?

In this question, the interviewer wants to know why you are interested in working for them. It would be best if you talked about gaining skills and helping the company achieve its goals as well.

Sample Answer

“After learning that there was an opening for this role in your company, I did not hesitate to make my application since I had all it takes to be a game designer. I would like to use the skills and knowledge that I have gained in the university and past experience to better the performance of your company. In addition, as you can see that I am still young and energetic, I still have the room to sharpen my skills and knowledge in this field by learning from you as well. Lastly, I would like to use my skills to earn a living and support my family too.”

2.     What Are The Roles Of A Game Designer?

When the interviewer asks you this question, all they want to know is whether you are aware of the duties and responsibilities that you are entitled to. Give them the main duties and responsibilities of a graphic designer.

Sample Answer

“As a game designer, there are a couple of duties and responsibilities that I am expected to perform. These duties and responsibilities are;

  1. Creating innovative games for entertainment or educational purpose
  2. Pitching new game ideas to executives and clients
  3. Prototyping new games
  4. Conceptualizing and developing characters, rules, settings and stories for new games
  5. Managing multiple teams and project

These are the duties and responsibilities that I would be delighted to perform in your company.”

3.     What Are The Qualities That A Game Designer Need To Be Successful

There are qualities that a good game designer should have. Tell your interviewers the qualities that a game designer should have to be successful in this role.

Sample Answer

“Despite having all the experience and skills, one needs to have personal qualities that will make you perform well in this role. A good game designer should be creative to produce unique and interesting content about the games. Secondly, a good game designer should have the artistic visions since this career is all about art and designing. Thirdly, having a passion of games is essential since there is a lot that you should be determined to attain in this career. Wide ranging knowledge of gaming trends is also essential in this sector. You have to be equipped on the latest trends to be up to date.”

4.     What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You Manage?

The interviewer wants to know the difficulties that you have come across in your previous roles. Talk about the main challenges relevant to this career and how you solved them.

Sample Answer

“At my entry-level in this career, I did not have right knowledge on how to do research and learn about the right audience to target. Planning on getting the right audience is very essential in this role. You need to catch as many users as you can so that you can get as many visits as possible. The games we used to design did not reach to the expected users we had expected. After doing a research on how to get many users, I learned that doing a target audience research is very essential and would help us reach our target. After doing the research before designing our games, we started getting very many users since we were now targeting the right audience.”

5.     Describe Your Daily Routine As A Game Designer?

Your interviewer wants to know the daily tasks that you would perform if you are given this role. Give them a very organized schedule from the first activity until the last one.

Sample Answer

“Upon arrive to my office, I would first check emails and voice mails to know whether there is any new client that needs our services. If yes I would respond to them and start preparing my to do list for that day. I then meet with all my team that is script writers, quality assurance guy, and other team members. We would then continue working on a project we started the previous day. This time, we are getting a lot of updates from our developer department pertaining the project”

6.     Describe Briefly About Your Experience

The interviewer wants to know about your past experience working as a game designer. Talk about where you have worked, for how long, and the experience you gained from them.

Sample Answer

“As a game designer, I have indulged a number of years into this field. To start with, I was employed in a game development company where our tasks were to develop game designs. Here, I was able to meet a lot of people who have great experience in game designing. I was able to learn a lot of experience from them that was crucial. I worked for that company for three years. After that, I was also employed at another game designing company for the same task. I also continued to sharpen my experience as I worked for them. I worked in this company for four years. That gives me a score of seven years of experience in this field.”

7.     What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Is Required For This Role?

The interviewer wants to know how your attitude towards your role is like. Talk about what’s crucial that game designers should focus on.

Sample Answer

“As a game designer, I should be focused on giving my audience the best quality, interesting, and addictive content. I should major my focus on giving my target audience the best. I would also major on creating a creative content so that I can reach as many users as possible.”

8.     What Is The Biggest Challenge That You Foresee In This Job?

What your interviewer is looking at is the difficulties that you think might affect this job in future. Talk about the main challenge that you think might affect this industry in the future.

Sample Answer

“The main challenge that may affect this industry in the future might be gameplay rapid advancements. For a game to be considered as an interesting one, gameplay must be on point. But due to the rapid advancement in technology, it has not been left behind and game developers are finding it hard to catch up and balance with other aspects of the game. This is a challenge that will affect this industry in the future and the game designers should be careful on balancing the aspects of the game.”

9.     How Do You Stay Motivated In Your Work?

Your interviewer wants to know what gives you morale and psych while you are at work. Consider talking about your achievements as your motivators.

Sample Answer

“As far as my career is concerned, I have been able to achieve so much and that’s what motivates me most. When I design a game and see it getting the best ratings and comments about it, I always see the work of my hands being appreciated. This makes me want to do more and more of the game designing. It’s every game designer’s wish to see a game they designed being at the top rated games.”

10.    Describe A Time When You Failed In This Role And The Lessons You Learnt

Since we learn from our mistakes, the interviewer wants you to tell them an event where you made a mistake and the outcome was not as you expected.

Sample Answer

“Since we learn from our mistakes, I wouldn’t shy to say that I have ever made a mistake in my career. As I said earlier, doing a research about your target audience is very important in this role. Back in the days when I was a freshman in the industry, I did not do enough research on the target audience of a game I was designing. I was disappointed learning that the game had very few users even after doing a lot in advertisement to market. This was a great lesson that I needed to do enough research about my target audience.”

11.    Why Do You Feel You Are Most Suited For This Role?

The interviewer wants to know why you think that you are the best of the best among the candidates that have applied for this role. Talk about your unique experience and knowledge.

Sample Answer

“Since a lot of mistakes can be done at the entry level of a game designer, your company can avoid this by choosing an experienced game designer. I have gained a lot of skills and knowledge relevant to this industry. I would be delighted if you used my experience as an added advantage to me for the good of the company. Upon securing this position, I will not start from zero. I already know what it takes and what I am expected to do. This will also benefit this company in terms of saving cost and time to conduct trainings.”

12.    Share With Us Your Greatest Achievement

Your interviewer wants you to share your greatest goal that you have attained in your career. Consider talking about awards, promotions, recognitions you have received in your career.

Sample Answer

“Since I started this job, I have received several awards out of my hard work. But to talk of the best awards, I remember when a game I designed won a very big title in the continent. This won ‘The Game Of The Year’ title back in 2020. This came along with the gold medals that every member of the team that worked on that project received. This was my greatest achievement that I have received in my career. I hope that I will get a room to achieve more goals in your company.”

13.    Take Us Through The Game Designing Process.

Your interviewer wants to know whether you are conversant with the stages that are involved in game designing. Take them through the process.

Sample Answer

“When designing a game, there are phases that I need to go through to come up with a final plan. These are the phases of designing a game;

  1. Capture phase – This is doing research on a wide variety of fields.
  2. Brainstorming – This is the phase where you combine your research and start giving ideas on the project.
  3. Prototype – After getting ideas, you kind of sketch the project to see whether or not it will work.
  4. Playtest – This is where you invite your friends and families to play the game to test it.
  5. Iterate – After getting feedback from those you invited to test, you make update to better where it needs some adjustments
  6. Implement – After making the update, you now need to implement, and release it to the market.

That would be a nice game created from a very detailed process.”

14.    Which Tools Are Essential For You To Design A Game?

The interviewer wants you to tell them the technical tools that will help you come up with the final product.

Sample Answer

“There are tools that one needs in order to succeed in this role. The few of the key ones are;

  1. GameMaker – It’s a drag-and-drop system that allows you make game faster if you are coding it.
  2. Unity – Can allow you make 2D and 3D games on any platform
  3. Stencyl – Makes you make Flash games faster
  4. Construct 2 – Perfect tool for designing 2D games
  5. Cocos2D – This is an open-source tool for creating 2D games with C++, although they support JavaScript and Lua.

Those would be my top five tools I would use when designing a game.”

15.    Tell Us The Top Five Elements Of A Good Game

There are elements that have to be there when designing a game. Tell your interviewer about them.

Sample Answer

“There are five key elements of a good game. Among the main are;

  1. Space – The look and feel of a game comes from the design of its space.
  2. Components – These are the parts of your game like your avatar, blocks, and enemies.
  3. Mechanics – These are the activities like jumping and collecting.
  4. Goals – Of course the players have to achieve a goal to win
  5. Rules – Guidelines on how to play the game.

Those are the top five elements that a good movie should have to my knowledge.”

16.    What Are The Four Things To Consider When Designing A Game?

The interviewer wants to know the factors that you should consider when designing a game. Talk about what you would look into when designing one.

Sample Answer

“As a game designer, this is what I would look into when designing a game.

  1. The controls
  2. The User Interface and HUD elements
  3. Playtesters
  4. Launch and post-launch

These would be the top four considerations I would take.”

17.     How Would You Market Your Game?

The interviewer wants to know what you would do to make your game be noticed by as many users as possible. Talk about the game marketing strategies you would put into place

Sample Answer

“As a game designer, I would love to see my game having as many users as possible. That will mean that my game is interesting. To ensure that I get the many users, I would promote the project using videos and trailers. Secondly, I would start generating hype about the whole game as early as possible to get everyone eager to play the game. I would also use the social medial to advertise it. With those ways, I would get my game noticed.”

18.    Why Did You Leave Your Last Role?

Tell the interviewer why you left your job to apply another.

Sample Answer

“In my last role, I had been employed on a three year contract that was renewable but I thought of changing my working environment.”

19.    What Will You Offer To This Company In The Next One Month?

The interviewer wants to know what you have for the company in the first month.

Sample Answer

“In my first month, I will ensure that I have tested all my strategies and adapted to the new environment. This will make me continue with my job as usual to maximize the company’s productivity”

20.    What Is Your Biggest Fear In Your Career?

The interviewer wants to know what it is that you would not like to happen to you in your career.

Sample Answer

“My biggest fear in this career is creating a game that will not reach many users. That will mean that my game is useless. I wouldn’t want to experience that in my career”

Conclusion

This is a very interesting role that needs creativity. Show creativity when answering questions as above. All the best!