A Shared Language
Chicago made history at the corner of Adams and LaSalle. In 1885, The Home Insurance Building completed construction and became known as the world’s first “skyscraper.” However, thousands of years earlier, a different skyscraper was attempted.
“A tower to the heavens,” they called it. Today we know it as The Tower of Babel. It was an ambitious plan that involved creating a city and a tower made of fired bricks and mortar. In Genesis 11, we read that this plan was possible because “[T]he whole earth had one language and the same words.” Of course, a shared language was not the only thing they needed. A building project of this size requires a significant amount of skill, expertise, and manpower. However, a shared language was the glue that held the project together.
God confirms this a few verses later when he says: “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”
One language. The same words. As I read this story to my little ones, these phrases stuck out and made me reflect on past experiences working on teams. Much like designing and building a skyscraper, making games requires an incredible amount of communication to ensure everyone is building the same thing.
Communication is complex; even when we speak the same language, it's still possible for ideas to get miscommunicated, misconstrued, or lost entirely in the process. And in creative endeavors, our language is often trying to play catch up with our energy. When creativity strikes, it sweeps us off our feet, and we don’t always have the words to communicate our destination.
Ideas take time to express, explore, refine, and then solidify. Whether you are writing a script, sketching a world, or programming a system—it’s how the creative process works. Because of this, it's not uncommon for teammates to get out of sync with each other during development.
What does it look like to get out of sync as a team? Well, it usually starts with a name. Let’s say a narrative designer writes a quest that instructs the player to locate a “gemstone.” The programming team knew this quest was coming, so months ago, they created a “jewel” system. And the art team has a 3d asset ready to go named “sparkly_treasure.”
Three different names to describe one item in the game. No big deal, right? We all know what we’re talking they are the same thing, right? Now multiply that by hundreds or thousands of assets across multiple teams, and you can start to see the problems forming.
I’ve never worked on a project where language hasn’t caused issues in some fashion. Seemingly insignificant decisions always have rippling effects throughout a project, creating confusion, inefficiencies, and cognitive overhead. The problem with language is that it isn’t a fix and forget type of problem. It’s an ongoing process that requires diligence, discipline, and time.
The best advice I can offer is to follow your designers’ lead. Be attentive to their language and adopt as much of it as you can. Their language is what players see, so it makes sense for it to become the game's vocabulary. When you see discrepancies between teams, take the time needed to realign. Often it's as easy as renaming a few files or having a quick conversation.
Every team wishes they had more money and time for their project, but what if the solution was simply being more efficient? The Tower of Babel shows us that language is the glue that holds a team together. The more we work to create a shared language, the stronger and more productive our teams will become.
