Jonathan Guthauser
Effectively Organize Your Game’s Development With a Game Design Document. Have you ever dived right in to developing a game, but found yourself having to constantly change aspects of the design or the gameplay due to a lack of planning? You should consider using a game design document: a guiding vision of the game as a whole, pulling together ideas and plans for the design, development, and business sides of your game. Introduction To put it simply: we like to tell stories.
Some true, some not so much. And as the stories grew in complexity, so did the tools used in their making. Although video games were first just about getting the highest score possible when faced with a determined task, developers soon realized the endless possibilities laying ahead of them. A game has the potential to bond player and story in a way never seen before.
Unfortunately, since a game is composed of so many different elements, different experts from different areas are required in its creation, making the coordination of the development process a rather tricky job. Overview Art. Pixel Art Tutorial. Game Design Concepts. I Have No Words & I Must Design. This article was published in 1994 in Interactive Fantasy #2, a British roleplaying journal. A more recent version of the piece may be found here. There's a lotta different kinds of games out there. A helluva lot. Cart-based, computer, CD-ROM, network, arcade, PBM, PBEM, mass-market adult, wargames, card games, tabletop RPGs, LARPs, freeforms. And, hell, don't forget paintball, virtual reality, sports, and the horses. It's all gaming. But do these things have anything at all in common? Well, we can all do the latter: "Good game, Joe," you say, as you leap the net. As game designers, we need a way to analyze games, to try to understand them, and to understand what works and what makes them interesting.
We need a critical language. What Is a Game, Anyhow? It's Not a Puzzle. In The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford contrasts what he call "games" with "puzzles. " Some puzzles are obviously so; no one would call a crossword a "game. " A puzzle is static. It's Not a Toy. Just so Sim City. The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 2: Documentation Guidelines for the Functional and Technical Specifications. The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 2: Documentation Guidelines for the Functional and Technical Specifications Editor's note: Part 1 of this article was published on 10.19.99.
Did you ever look at one of those huge design documents that barely fit into a four-inch thick, three-ring binder? You assume that by its page count that it must be good. Well, having read some of those design volumes from cover to cover, I can tell you that size does not matter. They are often so full of ambiguous and vague fluff that it was difficult finding the pertinent information. This article is part two of a two part series that provides guidelines that when followed will ensure that your design documents will be pertinent and to the point. Functional vs Technical Specifications Traditionally in the game industry, there was only one spec. This problem was tackled as more and more seasoned programmers and managers of business software development moved into games. The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 1: Documentation Guidelines for the Game Concept and Proposal. The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 1: Documentation Guidelines for the Game Concept and Proposal The purpose of design documentation is to express the vision for the game, describe the contents, and present a plan for implementation.
A design document is a bible from which the producer preaches the goal, through which the designers champion their ideas, and from which the artists and programmers get their instructions and express their expertise. Unfortunately, design documents are sometimes ignored or fall short of their purpose, failing the producers, designers, artists, or programmers in one way or another. This article will help you make sure that your design document meets the needs of the project and the team.
It presents guidelines for creating the various parts of a design document. Design documents come in stages that follow the steps in the development process. The Purpose of Documentation Documentation means different things to different members of the team.