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You’re here because you have a brilliant game idea and you want to bring it into existence. The reality of making games is that thousands of games are made every year, and it's pretty difficult to stand out. Thinking about how your game will get discovered early-on is not only wise, but also a practical process that can be distilled down into a series of steps and considerations. If you described a game as being an open-world game all about performing illegal and daring actions in superpowered cars, you could be describing either Grand Theft Auto or Need For Speed.
Rule #3: Make it visual
However, as I mentioned earlier, the fundamental goals are still the same and you can learn what to do (or not to do) from them. Keep in mind, docs are a snapshot of your current thinking, not carved in stone. Include just enough information so everyone knows what is absolutely essential — and maybe a few ideas that you might want to try in the future. Jumping will be an essential part of the game, so we will need to standardize the height of all pipes and obstacles to 3 blocks high.
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Typically, someone who’s willing to consider funding part of your game’s development will probably want to be able to understand how much of a risk investing in that project will be. You might add any early ideas you have for the game’s visual style, what it might sound like, or what kind of music might end up being used. 1-2 paragraphs describing each distinct mode of gameplay, starting with core gameplay. For instance, Half Life 2 would first describe general running around and shooting, then twists on the core gameplay (such as the gravity gun), then vehicle sequences. With as little backstory as possible, describe the game from start to finish.
Genre, Core Mechanics, and Core Gameplay
You might want to teach something with your game or spread awareness about a critical issue in the world. Whatever your ulterior motives, every game needs to generate some revenue in the end. "I don't want to see stuff like 'The fishing is like in Stardew Valley. Go play that and copy it.' It's not helpful and it's embarrassing. Yes, I've seen this more than once. Points of reference are fine but 'clone this' sucks." Paper prototypes can be incredibly useful in solving design problems before spending too much time or money cooking them up in-engine—but they do still take up effort, of course. The following list notes several common reasons teams might find a GDD helpful. This is the section that is most likely to be exposed to external stakeholders so try to include images and visual aids.
What to include in the first iteration of your GDD
In the storyline section, it is advisable to outline the game’s narrative, characters, and settings. Begin with a brief plot summary, highlighting the main story beats, and then offer more comprehensive details about the characters and settings. Details about the platforms on which the game will be available are also important to include as this information can have implications for design, development, and marketing strategies.
They noted that working with concept artists and art directors early on in the GDD process can be helpful as well, and that specificity will always be your friend here as a designer. In my studio work, living docs and wikis are paramount, and the classic "here's just a literal document that tells you what the game is" is very outdated at this point. I think a good doc also needs to have [the game's] core pillars very rigidly defined [in] explainers for folks to reference too, so devs are on the same page about what they're building." While a great deal of AAA design documentation is mired in secrecy, there are plenty of examples of GDDs out in the wild. As with the game world section, some reference or concept art goes a long way here.
Targeted Platforms, Go To Market (GTM), and Unique Selling Point (USP)
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Additionally, each milestone should be small enough that you can use that reflection to fine-tune elements of your workflows and overall production, yet long enough that meaningful and challenging work can still be completed. Following that, you should make as exhaustive a list as possible regarding all the assets, visual effects, textures, models, and code you're anticipating you'll need for the game. While you can't perfectly anticipate all your needs here, you should do your best to approximate the total amount of resources you'll need to make.
Page 4: Mechanics Overview
Your specific project will dictate the importance of any of these given areas, but it's important to know what you want to accomplish by making this particular game. This is an excellent place to define player experience goals—always centering what you want your player to feel as they are playing your game. Do you want them to feel like a nimble creature in a series of increasingly dazzling platformer challenges? Be very specific about your player experience goals and note how you will design for them.
Open the Character template
Typically, there are two elements that are common to many one-page designs. There are a lot of ways you could do this but don’t assume that a digital method is going to be the most convenient. Once you’ve decided what you want your design to do, you’ll need to decide the best way to demonstrate it. What’s important is that each individual design doesn’t rely on other pages to do its job, which would simply be a large design guide by a different name.
For example, a basic one-page game design document can help you to keep track of high-level concepts and the broad details of your game. Or at least they don’t use the kind of large single-document design guides that you might imagine when picturing the traditional game design document. However, while the general idea of a game design document is fairly straightforward, actually writing one can be tricky and time-consuming. After writing a couple of docs, I've massaged my design document "template" into something that really works for me, and I think works better than the traditional formats for independent game development. Introducing the 'Game Design Document (GDD) - Ultimate Notion Template' – an indispensable tool for indie developers, providing the means to craft exceptional games with unparalleled clarity and precision.
However, while a design wiki can be useful for managing a large database of information, separating data into categories and entries can hide the relationships between the different parts of your game. Which can be helpful if you want to build a database of information about items, weapons, pickups and locations in your game. However, there are more ways than one to manage the design of your game, and you may find that some methods work better for you and your project than others. Or, if your game has multiple endings or paths that the player can follow, having a place to keep track of them can help to avoid confusion later.
For a long time now, I've been using Game Dev Underground's One-Page Game Design Document Template. It's a very nice template to use when you're just starting out to build your game concept/idea but after making my own projects I figured that I could make a template that would suit how I wanted to design games more. I'm still very thankful to their template though since it made me learn a lot of things through the course of my gamedev journey. As you have already noticed, an elaborate plan is a key to a successful project. The fact that many indie dev studios and beginner teams neglect to create one makes their job much harder.
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Describe how they look, what is their personality like, their main interests and dislikes. Their goals within the game narrative and their relation with other game characters. One of the most important parts of creating a Game Design Document is researching the demographics.
At the outset, it doesn't need to be extremely detailed or ornate, but a visual representation of how locations relate to one another can help everyone on the team "see" the world. You can use some of our recommended free or low-cost art tools here to rough out simple 2D maps. The more your team is involved in the game design process the closer they'll feel to the game and the better the final product will be. Even a simple game from a single person development team can sprawl wildly out of control, though – in both bad and good ways. Return to your docs to keep you grounded, but also to edit, rewrite, and reimagine them.
We consulted with a number of talented game designers to gather the best practices for writing and maintaining a modern documentation. If you make sure your GDD is easily searchable, readable, and concise, it will be an incredibly valuable resource for you and your team. There is no single, agreed-upon way to make a video game design document — because no two games are the same. Each GDD needs to serve the requirements of the game it represents, so there’s no single template that will fit the needs of every game. Remember, there is no one “right way” to write and develop a game design document.
Level design is not only a great framework for you to invent something new. It's also a handy tool to help your team understand the size and scope of your game. Making games for a living is an incredibly rewarding career, but it’s hard to break in unless you have insider knowledge. While we adore games here at Double Coconut and would probably make 'em for nothing if we could, we need to charge a modest sum to cover our time. In order to give you an accurate idea of this cost we first need a full and clear understanding of the talent and effort involved.
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