Hi Didsy, welcome to the forum! 
Ah yes; I happen to know some of my early forum posts when when I was about 13 are still out there; I dont think I said anything mean, but I was definitely an annoying kid in another time too 
Also Id love to hear more about how you got into game design; its a career Iv explored in the past and I know there are many others on the forum would would be interested in it! How did you find yourself doing that work, would you recommend it and what tips would you give to aspiring game designers today?
Also bold abstract clothing sounds extreme!
Hope you enjoy your time here! 
☀︎☁︎☻→ You've Received Melon's Welcome Pack! ←☻✌︎☀︎
Hey Melooon, thanks for the warm welcome.
Getting in to game design was an interesting path. I studied computer games art at University about 10 years ago. I got some pretty bad careers advice when I was a teenager, and was basically told that the design course was "a bit of everything" while the art course was more specialised. It was sort of around that transition of where "design" was becoming a stand-alone discipline, but still finding it's feet.
The art course was really good, I learned how to use 3ds max (and maya, later in my career). Though I graduated with a good grade, in my early job search, trying to get in to the industry, I fell out with 3d art and found myself gravitating more and more towards design. Gameplay, intention, player experience. These had always been my passion.
I managed to work my way up through the QA department at Tt and eventually in to Design.
Having the art background has always been helpful. You generally find that most designers have a second talent, and it's often programming. So while having an art background isn't frequently helpful, when it does come in handy, it's
really helpful.
As for tips for aspiring designers, in terms of careers advice, the best I can give is actually not related to games at all. Anyone who gets an interview has got that far with skill and talent. Landing the job is almost always down to your presentation and confidence. Get a nice button down shirt and talk confidently. There are so many aspiring developers who struggle to stick the landing due to having trouble expressing themselves.
Personally, though. My advice to designers is to be as "out-there" as possible with your designs. This is in no way careers advice, its more that I personally want to see more ambitious and experimental designers in the field.
Go back and play janky retro games. Lots of "bad" retro and early 3d games may well be 90% garbage, but there's often a 10% in something that is really clever, but never got developed further because the game was unsuccessful.
Finally, would I recommend it? Yes, very much so. I won't lie, it's not always exciting and explosive. A lot of the time you are just waking up and going to work. But I've worked in other industries, other offices. One of the best things about the games industry is that you're allowed to be yourself at work. You don't have to mask or dress differently for the office. As long as you're clean and friendly, you can be yourself, listen to music or watch YouTube while you work. No one is timing your lunches. The games industry(particularly in the UK) is leaps and bounds ahead of other industries for employee wellbeing.
Little bonus tidbit. We used to hold Smash Bros tournaments at work, at Tt. Collectively, we got very good at it. That was a blast :D wish we could have streamed them.
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