I do not know if there is anyone out there that has played a game and thought to themselves, if they would have done the control this way, it would have improved the overall game- playing experience. One example is Gundam Side Story: 0079 on the Dream Cast. This game control scheme, I think, is set up to force on the player frustration, and frustration should never come form an external source. The first problem is how the designers prioritized the control scheme. How often do you need to block over aiming, avoiding in coming attacks, jumping, and maneuvering on the ground and in the air? For those who have not had the chance to play this game, here is a layout for you for the control scheme. The Analog stick controls torso, D-pad controls legs, A-button fires selected weapon, B-button locks on to target, X-button changes weapon, Y-button putts you in and out of sniper mode, L shoulder jump and hold for flight and R shoulder blocks with shield. I found maneuvering and aiming to be difficult and very cumbersome. The way I would have setup the control scheme for game would have been like this; Analog stick for looking around and aiming, press down on the D-pad to block, push left on the D-pad for sniper mode, push up on the D-pad to change weapons, push right on the D-pad to lockon to target, push X to strafe left, push Y to move forward, push B button to strafe right, push A button to back step, L shoulder button for jumping and hold for flight , and R shoulder button for firing weapon. When in sniper mode you would use the up and down on the D-pad to zoom in and out. If you press any of movement buttons, such as A, B, X, Y, then press the L shoulder you Gundam will use it flight jets to move faster on the ground in the direction you are pushing. In my opinion this would have made Gundam Side Story far more enjoyable to play. As I showed you how I would have design Gundam in regards to the control scheme I have many other good ideas for games and I am wondering how one with such ideas gets their foot in the door. I believe that a game should be fun to play not to watch. I feel that all of these survival horror games are more fun to watch then to play. Once you have played through them is there really any reason to play them again, that is if you found all the secrets and bonus that the company place in there to encourage you to play again? I would like to hear from anybody that has information, found my way of thinking of interest, or just how they feel about what I said.

Yeah its easy to say that after you played the complete product. Developers usually dont get that chance, until its way too late to make any major changes to the design. It basically a matter of how the company is managing the project effort.

Companies do not hire designers, they kind of form by themselves from amongst the programmers, artists and other content guys. If you wish to work with games, learn about one of the aspects that goes into thier creation, and get damn good at it. And i mean really, really good. Then you have a chance.

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Games are hard.

It''s quite simple, really. Go to a game company''s website, or something like www.gamejobs.com and look at the listings. Figure out which skillset you are closest to, learn the skills you don''t have, polish the ones you do and send in your application.

Game companies do hire designers, but you don''t start out as a game designer. A designer usually gets to handle a subset of the game or maybe only level designs.

The easiest way to get a job as a game designer (solo) is to own the company.

$0.02