Mmm, so have you tried making a re-work concept at all then?
You might be surprised at what you come up with when you try.
Breaking down one of those champs to its core and then re-building it would be a great practice exercise for a portfolio piece.
You might be also be interested in these three questions from Ghostcrawler's ask.fm~
http://ask.fm/RiotGhostcrawler
Q-----
What types of questions do you ask when you do interviews?
A-----
Here are some of my standard ones. My interview style tends to be more conversational. I want to get people comfortable and talking so they slip out of interview mode and I get more of a sense for how it would be to work with them.
- What games are you playing now / what are some of your favorites of all time?
- What would be your dream game to make if you had a team and a budget?
- Let's talk about a problem in a game you like. Now propose 10 ways to fix that problem. Now advocate for the best problem. Now imagine the tech director says your idea won't work. How do you pivot?
- What do you when you disagree with the lead on your team about a feature?
- How do you change the culture of a company or team?
- How do you respond when your team gives feedback that they don't understand the vision of your feature?
- How do you react if player response to your design is really negative?
- What kind of conversations do you have via email, versus small meetings, versus large meetings?
- Let's talk about horrible mistakes you've made and what you learned from them.
- I'm going to walk you through a real or theoretical gnarly design problem for League (or another game you're familiar with). I'm going to challenge your answers aggressively to see if you cave immediately or irrationally defend your idea to the death.
- If we have time, we might do a champion design exercise.
- Why do you want to work at this company specifically?
- What would you do to make Dwarf Fortress more appealing? What about Dark Souls?
- Why don't we see new RTS games?
- Is the MMO genre going away or just resting?
- Design an absurdly hardcore game for a mobile device.
- If you had a huge insights team at your disposal, what questions would you ask them about your design idea?
- How do you evaluate whether your idea is a dead end versus just needing a couple more days?
- How do you balance a game with a hugely diverse player base?
- If you could give advice to you five years ago, what would it be?
- What are the costs and benefits of crunch in the game industry?
- What do you do if you suspect your compensation is unfair?
- How do you defuse an argument if a colleague just irrationally hates your design idea?
- For [some game with boss monsters] say you are making a new boss based on [some other character from a different game]. What abilities or mechanics does that encounter absolutely need to include?
- How does systems complexity relate to game depth?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of various business models (box, subscription, F2P, etc.)?
- What is the purpose of skill shots in League etc? What are alternatives to skill shots?
- What is the game with the best combat? Story? Characters? Systems outside of combat? Matchmaking?
- What is a sequel/reboot to an older game that the industry just absolutely needs to be making?
- When is it okay to ship a bug?
- How do you celebrate success?
- Have you ever had to fire anyone?
- When do you use data vs trust your gut?
Q----
"Let's talk about a problem in a game you like. Now propose 10 ways to fix that problem. Now advocate for the best problem. Now imagine the tech director says your idea won't work. How do you pivot?" Now that's a kicker of a question. it definitely gets their gears in motion. A hard one for sure.
A----
It's pretty common for a new designer to be able to come up with one solution for a problem and then be stumped if you ask them for another one.
If you're in an interview (for any job in any industry) and you are asked to solve a problem, I would say "Here are three solutions. I can elaborate on any of them if you'd like."
This solution doesn't work as well for questions with right and wrong answers of course, but those are often lame interview questions.
Q----
Are those for junior / experienced / senior game designers? Coming up with 10 ways to fix a problem on the spot seems hardcore. :P
A----
Even for juniors. Yes, it's hardcore, and really we are less interested in the answers than seeing how you think. It is rare in this business that you literally need to solve a problem in 3 minutes or less. But you can learn a lot about how someone approaches a problem. Do they go to the whiteboard? Do they start pitching categories of problems and then fleshing out specific problems within those categories? Do they talk just to fill the time? Do they freak out like a deer in headlights?
