How to be a junior Game Designer, without dying in the attempt.

I have been a professional Game Designer and Level Designer for 2 years-ish now, plus another 5 doing it for the sake of doing it in different projects, mostly. But this blog is not about game design tips, nor theory on the subject, nor written specifically for designers. This is for the indie community in general. And I will start with the following sentence::

"Game Designers are the senseless madmen of the indie industry"

This are the words of a coleague, and now good friend, of mine; from now on we we'll call him Bob.  At first, I was kinda mad at this statement; But reality is that, sadly, the Bobs totaly right and completely wrong at the same time.

Why is he right?

Most people starting in videogame development, the people have no real ability in other areas, wants to be a Game Designer. Mostly because of three simple reasons.

Game Designers have an incredibly low starting point. Every kid with a couple of working brain cells and good enough ideas could potentially do it. Even a good Game Master could be considered, lightly, as a game designer in some ways. And sadly, something I did myself back in the day, everyone that had started to design some game automatically proclaims themselves as "Game Designers" as soon as they have the opportunity, and makes sure to let everyone know that. And this takes me to the next point.

If you have some capabilities in making words sounds good and writing a good story you are not a game designer. If you have read/studied "The Art of Game Design" or the "The Ultimate Guide to Game Design" (which are great books and i highly recommend), you just had a good and smart start,