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Since there’s no exact way of formatting your GDD game design document, you still have to clarify the project’s vision and provide details on its every development stage. Even though GDDs are among the critical components in the game development cycle, their role might have shifted slightly over the years. The thing is, information stored in a game design document can be redundant unless well-formatted. 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.
Here is a List of Real Game Design Document Examples:
It is a vital tool for monitoring the project’s health and mitigating potential failures. In a GDD’s story section, it’s recommended to sketch out the game’s plot, characters, and settings. These tools offer streamlined organization within a development team, improved accessibility and comprehension for novice designers, and the rapid capture and sharing of ideas.
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Designers or artists may find ways to resolve bugs that require less time and effort than an outright bug fix. Putting the Bug Report in the GDD will increase the chance that your teammates see the changes noted there as they look for instructions making their next asset or feature. By setting clear milestones and deliverables, the design document allows for more effective tracking and management of the project's progress. It can serve as a guide for post-launch support, updates, and expansions, ensuring that new content aligns with the original vision and design of the game.
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Although it’s true, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look around the internet to study examples of other game design documents. More than just a way to keep your ideas organized and available to read, the game design document is what you’ll use to help artists, programmers, and other developers understand what your game should be. Creating a GDD is an integral part of game development, offering numerous advantages crucial for successful game design.
If you have a game project that needs appraisal, you are welcome to contact us and receive an unbiased and accurate report. If you need us to do any additional services, we will also be happy to oblige. During brainstorming, you imagined the different parts of your game. It's time to start exploring some visual directions with a moodboard.
If you constantly update the document as you progress, you’ll always understand the changes you’re making. Any changes to the game should be tracked through the game design document, which means you can revert back to earlier iterations if something doesn’t work or your idea creep took you too far. It should provide a firm platform from which you can explore different game ideas. Exactly how you secure an agreement with a publisher is beyond the scope of this article and I’m not going to pretend that it’s as simple as only writing a marketing focussed game design document. The queue is the place to note any errors or inconsistencies in the document and mark down thoughts for discussion at team meetings.
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In fact, most developers would argue that following a generic outline when planning out your game will reduce the chance of innovation and uniqueness in your project. The game overview section is a place to provide a high-level overview of the game, essentially an extension of the original pitch. Teammates can always return to this section to make sure the original vision of the game is being adhered to (which is also the purpose of the document as a whole). In terms of creativity, the GDD offers a structured environment where creative ideas can be assessed and integrated into the game's design systematically. This structure ensures that creativity is harnessed effectively and contributes to the game's overall vision rather than leading the project off-track.
A level design outline typically includes specific details about locations – where they are, what they look like, and what their purpose is. This section is also where you describe the overall aesthetics of your game world and how they influence the environment design and relate to themes in your level design. The agile management framework has changed the game dev industry and inspired many teams to implement shorter game design doc versions. In this section, you must specify the platforms on which you would launch the game, like Mobile Phones (android, iOS), PC, Social Networks/Facebook or more.
Once you have all your inspiration in one place, the next step is to arrange your ideas to create the perfect layout. Place a key element to anchor your board, and change the size and position of the remaining elements to indicate their importance and relationships to one another. Sometimes it's easier to communicate an idea with an image, especially if it's a mood or style you're trying to express. Images can define things like character style, font choices, colors, scenes, and more. These can become the foundation for a moodboard as your game evolves.
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Depending on where you are in your planning, this may be a list of ideas for prototypes and a prioritized list of what to include, or screenshots, descriptions, and links to existing prototypes. You can also develop a paper prototype to include in the GDD as a way to illustrate your plans. To illustrate how vital the GDD is for game development, think of it as your project’s fortress. With a solid basis, your game will survive and successfully enter the market. Keep your feature docs as short as possible while providing enough clarity to get you started on those first steps.
The tools, softwares or game engines you would employ to create your new game, like Unreal Engine 4, Unity 3D and more. The detailed technicalities would need to be listed in a Technical Design Document (TDD), so here you just need to specify only most basic details. It is important to introduce the characters, story and theme of the game at the beginning. In case your game does not have any particular characters or a story, you may simply describe the theme of the game and move ahead. Like a simple shooting game may not necessarily have a character like a soldier rescuing civilians.
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But otherwise, make a single bullet-point outline that covers the materials you already have. This will help you to more quickly search for the details needed in constructing your GDD. Over time, the game you're making might drift or evolve from what was included in the GDD, and that's ok! No one can predict the future, and an amazing gameplay concept might be inspired part-way through development.
You can also create a character moodboard at this stage to help explore all aspects of their appearance. A character might start as a bundle of random ideas, traits and plot points from your game concept, so it’s important to bring everything together in one place. Now that you have a rough idea of the rules of your world, collect visual references that will help bring it to life. These can provide a handy starting point when thinking about character or level design. Use the Technical Requirements section to list any hardware, software, or game-engine specifics for your game.
In this post, we will look closely at one of the most important cornerstones of your future release — a game design doc or a GDD. However — and I cannot emphasize this enough — the most valuable part of writing docs is the chance to boil down all of your wild ideas into the essential parts you need to actually START the game development process. Based on my experience, the most successful game designers know the power of the one-pager – a quickly parsed document which gets everyone on board for a united vision of a great game. Yes, building a game engine or complex game elements takes sophisticated technical experience and careful planning.
The simple process of filling out this GDD template will help you start thinking through your game’s design. It’s a living document, so your first draft doesn’t have to be great — just get started, and you can refine it over time as you have more ideas. Since this list is used to motivate readers into buying the game, it’s written in a marketing speak that you’d want to avoid when writing those same features in your game design document. In game design, the flexibility and accessibility of the game design document are crucial.
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