Week 06

Games GDD

What is a game design document?

Game Design Documents are made to structure your game so you yourself and the others viewing the document can understand the ins and outs of how the game is going to be. The great thing about game design documents is that it helps you with structuring your game ideas so that you have it clear on what you want to do with the idea. Game design documents only work when the document is formatted properly and use the right concept template. Here are some other reasons why having a game design document is very useful:

Memory aid: When a group of people or even just one person is making a game there is a lot of information to keep track of and so much material to cover, from mechanics of the game to settings and the things that happen in the story of the game and overall lore. These documents cover all the details for these people to come back to 

Communication tool: Since your bringing this game document to people who are going to critique your game the document is the best way to get across your ideas and how you intend the game to be. You will need to make it easy to read and well-formatted and easy to annotate, this will give you the best possible chance at winning over the person whose reading the document.

Looking at these different ways of how a games design document could benefit a designer really helped me with how I could structure my game, at the beginning of the year I always wondered how I could think of what I could do for my game and it seemed like a daunting task but these tips and readings really made things clear and don't have me asking myself these questions.

Documentation Types

There are many different design documentation types and each depends on the type of game that you are developing. Usually, these different documentations types are used when you have multiple teams on one document.

Game Design Overview (Design): High-level overview of the game written for management and communicating the bigger picture for the game 

Detailed Design Doc (Design): Describing the mechanics and interfaces of the game, this helps the designers remember the details.

Story Overview (Design): Usually they have a separate team working on the narrative the game takes these documents are a really good way of communicating the story to the other teams.

Concept Art Overview (Art): Helps the other team members understand the vision for the game and helps keep creative ideas aligned.

Rules for Good design documentation

1. Knowing your target 
2. Keeping it short and concise 
3. Prioritize the design
4. Illustrate
5. Don't tell others how to do their jobs 
6. Use user stories
7. Separate code from content
8. Invest in a good format 
9. Use clear terminology
10. Kill redundancy 
11. Avoid weak language 
12. Capture your reasoning

I think these design rules are really good for keeping a structured and well laid out document I will defiantly be sticking to these when coming up with mine. If you would like to read more about these design rules check out this article here: Communication and Game Design Documents « The Acagamic

Here is a youtube video that explains this game design document clearly: https://youtu.be/1JopXec177w

There is another article that shows you the steps in writing up a game design document check out here: How to Write a Game Design Document (gamedeveloper.com)