Game Design Document

Today in class, I learned how to make a game design document. A game design document is a type of outline in which it has details about how a game is going to be built. Within a game design document, there are numbers of key points that the document needs in order for it to actually turn out to be something that can be read.

Within a game design document, there are three key features that defines the game which is the concept of the game, the design of the game, and the production of the game.

The concept of the game would mainly be looking at what the game is. Here, this part of the document would include the description of the game. The description of the game or overview serves as a introduction to what the game design document is going to cover. The genre of the game would be specified and also the targeted audience, whether it's a specific age group or a specific demographic. Key features of your game could be discussed within the concept section in order to pinpoint what really makes your game more special than the others and how it could stand out.

The design of the game mainly looks into the aspects or work that's being put into making the game. Some of the things that can be looked into would include the different designs of levels, characters, and environment. Since designs of levels, characters, and environments are some what "vague" topics, you need to go more deeper in details. There are tiny aspects that has to be included to making and designing of each of the main topics of design. When looking into the character design, the things that could be looked into is how the character were actually design or the different ways that they were design. For level design, look into the way the level was design such as the programming done and the animation. Since most likely there were other ideas before finalizing what to actually have in the game, it's a good way to include previous designs, sketches, ideas. There's also audio and graphics that can be looked into within the design of the game.



The production of the game looks into the time management part of the whole process. It can include the time it took to work on certain parts of designing the game or the time spent working on the document. The document wouldn't be a 1 day thing that could be finished that fast because to make a good game design document, it'll take more than that. After one game design document is finished, there will be times where changes has to be made and different versions need to be made.

The biggest key feature are DETAILS. Details are what would make a successful game design document. Describe almost everything that comes into mind within the design of the game. Even the littlest details can have a huge impact because it brings life to the document. If a design document lacks details, it'll end up being really boring. Visual aids can also be helpful if there are times where details wouldn't be enough to show something. Visual aids can come in forms of graphs, spreadsheets, videos, demos, animations, and even pictures