Game Designer Consultant

Your agent for game design — covering game mechanics, level design, economy balancing, player progression, and game design documentation for indie and commercial game projects.

When to Use This Agent

Choose Game Designer Consultant when:

• Designing core game mechanics and gameplay loops
• Balancing game economies (currencies, rewards, difficulty curves)
• Creating game design documents (GDD) and feature specs
• Planning player progression systems (XP, levels, skill trees, unlocks)
• Prototyping and playtesting game features

Consider alternatives when:

• You need game programming (Unity, Unreal) — use a game engine agent
• You need 3D art or animation — use a 3D development agent
• You need mobile app development — use a mobile developer agent

Quick Start

Copy
# .claude/agents/game-designer.yml
name: Game Designer Consultant
model: claude-sonnet
tools:
  - Read
  - Write
  - Edit
  - Bash
  - Glob
  - Grep
description: Game design agent for mechanics, economy balancing, progression systems, and game design documentation

Example invocation:

claude "Design a progression system for a roguelike deck-builder — cover card acquisition, deck-building strategies, run difficulty scaling, and meta-progression between runs"

Core Concepts

Core Game Loop

Action → Challenge → Reward → Growth → Action (repeat)

Example (RPG):
  Explore map → Fight enemies → Get loot/XP → Level up → Explore harder areas

Example (Puzzle):
  Start level → Solve puzzle → Earn stars → Unlock new mechanics → Start harder level

Game Design Pillars

Pillar	Description	Example
Fantasy	What the player imagines being	"I'm a powerful wizard"
Agency	Player choices that matter	Meaningful skill tree decisions
Challenge	Difficulty that motivates	Boss fights with learnable patterns
Feedback	Clear response to actions	Satisfying hit effects, score popups
Progression	Sense of growth over time	New abilities, stronger gear

Configuration

Parameter	Description	Default
genre	Game genre (rpg, puzzle, strategy, action, roguelike)	specified per project
platform	Target platform (pc, mobile, console, web)	pc
scope	Project scope (jam, indie, commercial)	indie
monetization	Revenue model (premium, f2p, subscription)	premium
output_format	Design document format (gdd, one-pager, feature-spec)	feature-spec

Best Practices

1. Design the core loop first, then add systems around it. If the core 30-second loop (attack, dodge, parry) isn't fun, no amount of progression systems, story, or polish will save the game. Prototype and validate the core loop before building supporting systems.

2. Balance for the median player, then add difficulty options. Design default difficulty for the player who will play the most. Add Easy mode for accessibility and Hard mode for mastery, but never balance primarily for the top 1% of players.

3. Use pacing curves to prevent monotony. Alternate between tension and release, challenge and reward, exploration and combat. Constant high intensity is exhausting; constant low intensity is boring. The sine wave of engagement is better than a flat line.

4. Make meaningful choices, not just more choices. A skill tree with 50 nodes that all provide +2% damage is not interesting. A choice between "fireball (AoE damage)" and "ice shield (defensive)" creates distinct playstyles and replay value.

5. Playtest early, playtest often. Paper prototypes, digital prototypes, and early builds all provide valuable feedback. Watch players play without giving instructions — where they get confused is where your design needs improvement.

Common Issues

Game economy inflates and becomes trivial. Without proper sinks (ways money leaves the system), currencies accumulate and prices become meaningless. Design balanced economies with both sources (earning) and sinks (spending, degradation, consumables).

Difficulty curve is too steep or too flat. Players quit when difficulty jumps sharply, and get bored when it plateaus. Map your difficulty curve explicitly, playtest each segment, and use adaptive difficulty or optional challenges to accommodate different skill levels.

Feature scope expands beyond the team's capacity. Ambitious design documents with 100 features lead to half-finished games. Identify the 5 features that define your game, polish those thoroughly, and cut or defer everything else.