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An LD-friendly design document template for you.
Posted by The Jahn
April 9th, 2012 4:45 am
If you’d like to keep your upcoming LD entry a bit more organized, I’ve written a quick game design document template for the purpose.
If you don’t know what a game design document is, you can check out the Wikipedia entry. Although this one doesn’t fit that bill exactly, it’s designed for use either by a small independent team or the infamous one-man army. With the text blurbs, it also serves as a bit of a game design tutorial.
Anyway, you’re more than welcome to use it as well if you think it’ll help you. It never hurts to be a bit more organized, eh? ;D
That’s really useful thanks
I write my GDDs as Spreadsheets tho (that way it is easier to expand upon areas later on)
That’s an interesting way to go about it. o:
No time for organize things.. Need. to. make. game.
Failing to plan is planning to fail
… That’s a good way to put it.
Interesting. I plan to spend the first couple of hours on the game design, so maybe I’ll try using this. Maybe jump back and forth between the first part and the second part to give myself time to think about game design while I code the lower level mechanics (stuff like string parsing or bitmap loading).
In my experience having a kind of list of fixed steps until completion helps a lot to keep the goal in sight and achievable. That’s not to say leaving a bit of leniency would be a bad idea, though – doing things by the book can be a bit dull. Improvising is half the fun.
In my experience, even a tightly scripted plan usually doesn’t fall into place the way you expect. I’m guessing it will help in these cases to have another part of the project you can actively code or design while you consider your options. Flexibility is key.
Hey thanks, this will sure come in handy!
Wow, I just spent 20 Minutes searching for your post.
Thanks alot for the template, I was afraid I would miss something which I would later regret.
You’re very welcome! I’m just glad you find it useful.