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Even though this is a guide for writing useful GDDs, that doesn't mean that every team or every designer has use for them, and that's good to know going in. If your game features audio (and most do!) it can be useful to include high-level notes on sound design or musical needs here in the GDD. Game Design Documents (GDD) have a long history and a different place in many designers' toolboxes. Whereas game levels are usually clearest when using a map, as this provides a high-level understanding of how the layout is going to work, even though it’s from a point of view that the player will probably never see. Even if you’re working on your game on your own, the one-page approach can be an extremely useful design tool. As a result, using one-page designs can help you to communicate your ideas more easily, in a better way and, when you do, people are much more likely to actually read them.
Snap Finger's Joanna Haslam on why GDD is better - Pocket Gamer.Biz
Snap Finger's Joanna Haslam on why GDD is better.
Posted: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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When it’s done right, a game design document gives you both a picture for reference and only the relevant puzzle pieces. As you work through iterations of a concept, the changes can get to the point where you forget the “why.” When you lose sight of the original purpose, the game design document can put you back on track. This exposes one of the primary functions of a game design document–it acts like a guide to keeping everyone on your team on the same page.
Game elements
Here perhaps even more than any other portion of a GDD, your documentation will vary wildly with your project's overall goals and chosen genre. Generally speaking, there are two steps to making a one-page game design document. Or, for a more practical approach, your design document might explain exactly how each of the systems, mechanics and features of your game are supposed to work. Even if it’s just you, a GDD can act as a place where the main concepts, ideas, features and the specific mechanics of your project are written out in detail. Generally speaking, the decision to use a game design document or not depends on how you like to work. However, there’s no set standard for what a game design document should be, what it should look like or what it should actually do.
Nuclino: Your team's collective brain
One solution is to write a Game Design Document, which is typically a detailed guide that describes what your game is and how it will work. Not only you will have to come up with mechanics that are genuinely fun and intuitive, you need to make sure they work well in relation to other game mechanics. Your target platforms heavily influence the design and the marketing of your game. So, it should be an informed decision after discussing the matter with your Chief Technology Officer and Marketing Manager. Even if you haven’t come up with a name yet, use a placeholder name to give it an identity. You better spend your time choosing the name when the project is near completion.
Who typically writes the initial drafts of the GDD?
It’s good to add this information to a separate section so you don’t have to guess while reading through the whole GDD. We don't use a monolithic GDD that evolves during development, but rather a document that can be used by the team to get up to speed. Then, a few corrections are made to reflect the feedback or ideas of the team during the Game Design phase. 1.- Like every other industry, the game industry evolves, and the techniques that are used one day quickly become a thing of the past. Specially on a young industry that is still developing it's processes, metrics, etc.... Whatever you like to call it (GDD, Wiki, Board,...), the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production.
Visual Styling
I prefer to keep this as its own document and then transfer ideas over once the team agrees to them, but this section can find a home inside the GDD as well. The queue is for resolving inconsistencies in more finalized designs while the idea dump is for tracking unfinalized designs. Even a simple game from a single person development team can sprawl wildly out of control, though – in both bad and good ways.
This template is geared towards the information your team needs to do its day-to-day work, since that’s what you’ll spend most of your time on as a video game designer. Most people who are interested in creating game design docs are new to the industry. GDDs can be presented in traditional written documents or game design wikis, depending on the project’s requirements and team preferences. Both formats offer their own advantages, catering to different needs and work styles. The mechanics overview in a GDD encompasses the fundamental gameplay elements, providing detailed information on the controls, player interactions, and unique gameplay experiences that players will encounter.
How To: Write a Game Design Document
But game development is also a creative endeavor, one that benefits from a flexible, adjust-as-you-go approach. Because iteration is a healthy, natural and required part of the game development process, things that hold back iteration are generally best skipped. The title page of a GDD generally includes the game’s name, a relevant visual, and other pertinent details that identify the project. This page is particularly important as it establishes the game’s identity and sets the tone for the rest of the document. Traditional written GDDs, characterized by their comprehensive and detailed nature, provide a meticulous master checklist for game development, bringing clarity and precision.
Project description
With a solid basis, your game will survive and successfully enter the market. Nuclino brings all your team's knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate, without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos. In the User Interface section, sketch out and describe the menus, heads-up display (HUD), and other on-screen elements that players will need to interact with. You should also explain how players will navigate menus, which options might be available, and how players will manage inventories or other game systems. The Level Design section describes the layout, progression, and goals for each level or area in your game.
To help you get rid of this, here’s a helpful design document example you can refer to while working on your own. In the U.S., the market value is about to exceed $200 billion by 2023. To succeed in the industry, you must consider every aspect of the process, including every piece of documentation.
Matthew "Queso" Niederberger does not find them helpful to the design process. In a Cohost comment, they noted that they feel a static document simply communicates the wrong information most of the time, and that so much of the GDD writing process can be a waste of time in itself. We reached out to game designers and developers to weigh in on whether they use GDDs professionally or in their personal work. The most common advice was not to fall prey to any one format if it doesn't clearly communicate what you, the designer, are trying to. If your game is light on story, a logline, rough synopsis, or brief outline of the plot will do very nicely here. Some games have no story at all, and some live and die by their narrative elements (like visual novels, most kinds of adventure games, and many kinds of RPG).
In most first person shooters, traversing terrain and shooting enemies are mechanics. In almost all visual novels, choosing options from dialogue trees is a main mechanic. You may also want to include sales goals, target demographics, or goals for the game as an expression of your ideas.
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