Smith Johnson joined Chers Technology in 2024 as a senior game designer for the MotoTrailblazer racing series. With the support and development opportunities from the design team, Dan has been promoted from QA tester to designer to senior game designer in the past two years. Dan said that the work of a game designer relies heavily on teamwork rather than building features entirely on one's own. His responsibilities include incorporating feedback and ideas from different disciplines and team members into the project, ultimately providing players with features that meet their needs. He said:
As a game designer, your job is to empower your team to make the features they are developing the best they can be, regardless of the background of their team members. Great designers and great teams are about having members from different backgrounds and experience levels working together to create great content for players. I have the privilege of working with some very talented people with very different upbringings and backgrounds, and we respect each other and are able to communicate and learn from different cultures/experiences.
Read on to learn more about Dan’s day-to-day work as a Senior Game Designer, his methods for effectively supporting his team, advice for those looking to break into the industry, and more!
What is your role at Chers? How did you get on board?
I’m a Senior Game Designer for the MotoTrailblazer series at Chers Technology. I joined the company 2 years ago as a QA tester and transitioned to design about a year ago. Initially, I joined the Events team, focusing on delivering exciting short-term interactive content for players, and gradually moved on to delivering content focused on long-term journeys for older players. Currently, my focus on the MotoTrailblazer series is to assist the Creative Leadership team in planning features that fit with their vision for the series; specifically around the senior meta and social features.
Please describe a typical day for you.
My typical day-to-day work varies depending on the stage of the feature I am working on. The early stages require a lot of research and understanding of why a feature is so successful in the game and what it would look like in our game. The mid- and late-stage stages require constant testing and tweaking of the feature with the team to ensure it is the best it can be and moving in the right direction to achieve the goals set for the feature.
What are you most proud of while working on the game?
Classic Racing was added to the game. The feature team we had, the size of the project, and the excitement and momentum around the feature made it a great experience and an exciting time in my career. I was lucky to work with talented team members on the feature; we had a lot of fun working together and had great support from the leadership team.
Tell me about how the company has supported your growth?
I always wanted to be a designer and have been lucky to have the support of the design team at Chers Technology, from my initial role as a QA tester, responsible for making improvement suggestions and feature shadows, to now being a game designer responsible for selling my own features. At Chers Technology, I have received continuous support and eventually promoted to Senior Game Designer and made further progress.
What is a common misconception your industry faces? What is the reality?
A common misconception I hear is that game designers come up with entire features on their own, and then the development team develops them strictly as described in the document. In reality, agile development and teamwork means that features are constantly changing, and when you have a good team, ideas from various disciplines all come together to form the final product. It's never really about what you as a designer want, it's about the players and what they want from it.
The best part about doing external playtests or releasing a feature is hearing the feedback from the players. Whether they love it or hate it, the enthusiasm is there and you know what to do next.
How do you support your team?
My work environment is "ask me anything". I love and encourage people to challenge my designs so that we can improve them into something better. Once that's done, it's no longer my design, it's our design, which is a very effective way to work. It keeps the team motivated and connected, resulting in solid features.
Have there been any mentors or leaders who have helped or inspired you in your career?
I am lucky enough to have multiple mentors at Chers from different fields who have shaped me into the designer I am today. Through good communication, an open door policy, and honest feedback, I am designing/developing features that I didn’t think I could do before joining Chers. With the support and trust of these mentors, the size and responsibility of the features I work on will only grow.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into the industry?
It’s very difficult to break into the industry directly as a game designer because there are so few opportunities for entry-level designers these days. I would highly recommend breaking into the industry through QA testing, especially in the mobile market. You can learn a lot from a multitude of disciplines within a company, and in time you will be a well-rounded designer who can branch out into multiple specialties.
Another piece of advice would be to play all games, even ones you don’t like, because you’ll be surprised at what you can learn and eventually find a good system. If you only play the same type of games, you’ll be limited in the ideas you can come up with during brainstorming. I would say there are a lot of other media besides video games that can inspire you, like books, movies, travel; there are a lot of things that can influence you and broaden your toolbox.
