Copy and paste as a template and fill in the info as relevant to your work,
add additional info if needed
Game Design Document for:
NAME OF GAME
Essential IMAGE of the Game
Full legal name of Members of the team, their roles, and contact info
All work Copyright ©oooo by Your Names
Table of Contents
NAME OF GAME
GAME OVERVIEW
Screen shot image from the game
One paragraph description of the game, the names of the team members, their roles, and contact info
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophical point # 1 The WHY FACTOR: Why create this game? Why would someone want
to play it?
What is different about this game?
What makes it experimental?
Philosophical point # 2 Immediate and Long Term Projected SocioCultural Project Impact?
Philosophical point #3 Predecessor or previous games/ distinctive factors in this genre
Philosophical point #4 Target Audience
COMMON QUESTIONS
What is the game?
Where does the game take place?
What do the players do?
How many characters are there?
What is the main focus?
What’s different?
DESIGN HISTORY
VERSION 1.10
VERSION 2.00
VERSION 2.10
FEATURE SET
GENERAL FEATURES
MULTI-PLAYER FEATURES
EDITOR
GAME PLAY
THE GAME WORLD
OVERVIEW
WORLD FEATURE #1
WORLD FEATURE #2
THE PHYSICAL WORLD
Overview
Key Locations
Travel
Scale
Objects
Weather
Day and Night
Time
RENDERING SYSTEM
Overview
2D/3D Rendering
CAMERA
Overview
Camera Detail #1
Camera Detail #2
GAME ENGINE
Overview
Game Engine Detail #1
Water
Collision Detection
LIGHTING MODELS
Overview
Lighting Model Detail #1
Lighting Model Detail #2
THE WORLD LAYOUT
OVERVIEW
WORLD LAYOUT DETAIL #1
WORLD LAYOUT DETAIL #2
GAME CHARACTERS
OVERVIEW
CHARACTER Sheets
CHARACTER RENDERING
OVERVIEW
CHARACTER RENDERING DETAIL #1
CHARACTER RENDERING DETAIL #2
USER INTERFACE
OVERVIEW
USER INTERFACE DETAIL #1
USER INTERFACE DETAIL #2
MUSICAL SCORES AND SOUND EFFECTS
OVERVIEW
AUDIO
3D SOUND
SOUND DESIGN
SINGLE PLAYER GAME
OVERVIEW
SINGLE PLAYER GAME DETAIL #1
SINGLE PLAYER GAME DETAIL #2
STORY
HOURS OF GAME-PLAY
VICTORY CONDITIONS
MULTI-PLAYER GAME
OVERVIEW
MAX PLAYERS
SERVERS
CUSTOMIZATION
INTERNET
GAMING SITES
PERSISTENCE
SAVING AND LOADING
WORLD EDITING
OVERVIEW
WORLD EDITING DETAIL #1
WORLD EDITING DETAIL #2
EXTRA MISCELLANEOUS
OVERVIEW
RELATED
“XYZ APPENDIX”
“OBJECTS APPENDIX”
“USER INTERFACE APPENDIX”
“NETWORKING APPENDIX”
“CHARACTER RENDERING AND ANIMATION APPENDIX”
“STORY APPENDIX”
Game Overview Sheet:
Name of game
Screen shot image from the game
One paragraph description of the game with a brief mention of the technology used.
All work Copyright ©oooo by legal names of all team members, their roles, and contact info
Game Philosophy
Why create this game?
Why are you creating this game? Why would someone want to play it?
Immediate and Long Term Projected Sociocultural Project Impact?
What will be the impact of your game on others, when it is currently created and in the future? What impact will it have on the field?
Predecessor or previous games/ distinctive factors in this genre?
What came before your game to influence you? What is unique to your game?
Target Audience?
Who is the game being made for? What is the age of the people you are making the game for? What are their demographics?
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GAME OVERVIEW Common Questions
WHAT IS THE GAME?
Describe the game in a paragraph. This is the answer to the most common question that you will be asked. What are you working on?
WHERE DOES THE GAME TAKE PLACE?
Describe the world that your game takes place in. Simple as that. Help frame it in the reader’s mind by spending a few sentences on it here. You can go into lengthy detail later in a section solely dedicated to describing the world. Remember that we want to keep this part of the design light and readable.
WHAT DO THE PLAYERS DO?
HOW MANY CHARACTERS ARE INVOLVED?
WHAT IS THE MAIN FOCUS?
What do you achieve or experience?
DESIGN HISTORY
This is a brief explanation of the history of this document. In this paragraph describe to the reader what you are trying to achieve with the design history.
Version 1.10
Version 1.10 includes some tuning and tweaking that I did after making my initial pass at the design. Here is what I changed.
1. I rewrote the section about what systems the game runs on.
2. I incorporated feedback from the team into all parts of the design however no major changes were made.
3. Just keep listing your changes like this.
Version 2.00
Version 2.00 is the first version of the design where a major revision has been made now that much more is known about the game.
After many hours of design, many decisions have been made. Most of these large design decisions are now reflected in this document.
Included in the changes are:
1. Pairing down of the design scope. (Scope, not design)
2. More detailed descriptions in many areas, specifically A, B and C.
3. Story details.
4. World layout and design.
Version 2.10
Version 2.10 has several small changes over that of version 2.00. The key areas are in many of the appendixes.
Included in the changes are:
1. Minor revisions throughout entire document.
2. Added “User Interface Appendix”.
3. Added “Game Object Properties Appendix”.
4. Added concept sketch for world.
ETC.
FEATURE SET
General Features
Huge world
Mutant fiddle players
3D graphics
32-bit color
Multiplayer Features
Up to 10 million players
Easy to find a game
Easy to find your pal in huge world
Can chat over voice link
Editor
Comes with world editor
Get levels from Internet
Editor is super easy to use
Gameplay
List items here that is key to the gameplay experience
List a lot of stuff here
THE GAME WORLD
Overview
Provide an overview to the game world.
World Feature #1
This section is not supposed to be called world feature #1 but is supposed to be titled with some major thing about the world. This is where you break down what is so great about the game world into component pieces and describe each one.
World Feature #2
Same thing here. Don’t sell too hard. These features should be awesome and be selling the game on its own.
The Physical World
OVERVIEW
Describe an overview of the physical world. Then start talking about the components of the physical world below in each paragraph.
The following describes the key components of the physical world.
KEY LOCATIONS
Describe the key locations in the world here.
TRAVEL
Describe how the player moves characters around in the world.
SCALE
Describe the scale that you will use to represent the world. Scale is important!
OBJECTS
Describe the different objects that can be found in the world.
See the “Objects Appendix” for a list of all the objects found in the world.
WEATHER
Describe what sort of weather will be found in the world, if any. Otherwise omit this section. Add sections that apply to your game design.
DAY AND NIGHT
Does your game have a day and night mode? If so, describe it here.
TIME
Describe the way time will work in your game or whatever will be used.
Rendering System
OVERVIEW
Give an overview of how your game will be rendered and then go into detail in the following paragraphs.
2D/3D RENDERING
Describe what sort of 2D/3D rendering engine will be used.
CAMERA
OVERVIEW
Describe the way the camera will work and then go into detail if the camera is very complicated in sub sections.
CAMERA DETAIL #1
The camera will move around like this and that.
CAMERA DETAIL #2
The camera will sometimes move like this in this special circumstance.
GAME ENGINE
OVERVIEW
Describe the game engine in general.
GAME ENGINE DETAIL #1
The game engine will keep track of everything in the world like such and such.
WATER
There will be water in the world that looks awesome, and our game engine will handle it beautifully.
COLLISION DETECTION
Our game engine handles collision detection really well. It uses the such and such technique and will be quite excellent.
LIGHTING MODELS
OVERVIEW
Describe the lighting model you are going to use and then go into the different aspects of it below.
LIGHTING MODEL DETAIL #1
We are using the xyz technique to light our world.
LIGHTING MODEL DETAIL #2
We won’t be lighting the eggplants in the game because they are purple.
THE WORLD LAYOUT
Overview
Provide an overview here.
World Layout Detail #1
World Layout Detail #2
GAME CHARACTERS
Overview of what your characters are
Character Sheets
How you create or personalize your character.
USER INTERFACE
Overview
Provide some sort of an overview to your interface and same as all the previous sections, break down the components of the UI below.
User Interface Detail #1
User Interface Detail #2
MUSICAL SCORES AND SOUND EFFECTS
Overview
This should probably be broken down into two sections but I think you get the point.
Audio
If you are using Red Book then describe what your plan is here. If not, what are you using?
3D Sound
Talk about what sort of sound APIs you are going to use or not use as the case may be.
Sound Design
Take a shot at what you are going to do for sound design at this early stage.
SINGLE-PLAYER GAME
Overview
Describe the single-player game experience in a few sentences.
Here is a breakdown of the key components of the single player game.
Single Player Game Detail #1
Single Player Game Detail #2
Story
Describe your story idea here and then refer them to an appendix or separate document which provides all the details on the story if it is really big.
Hours of Gameplay
Talk about how long the single-player game experience is supposed to last or what your thoughts are at this point.
Victory Conditions
How does the player win the single-player game?
MULTIPLAYER GAME
Overview
Describe how the multiplayer game will work in a few sentences and then go into details below.
Max Players
Describe how many players can play at once or whatever.
Servers
Is your game client-server or peer-to-peer or whatever.
Customization
Describe how the players can customize the multiplayer experience.
Internet
Describe how your game will work over the internet.
Gaming Sites
Describe what gaming sites you want to support and what technology you intend to use to achieve this. Perhaps Dplay or TCP/IP or whatever. It is probably a good idea to break the tech stuff out into a separate area, you decide.
Persistence
Describe if your world is persistent or not.
Saving and Loading
Explain how you can save a multiplayer game and then reload it. If you can or why this is not possible.
CHARACTER RENDERING
Overview
Provide an overview as to how your characters will be rendered. You may have decided to include this elsewhere or break it out to provide more detail to a specific reader.
Character Rendering Detail #1
Character Rendering Detail #2
WORLD EDITING
Overview
Provide an overview about the world editor.
World Editing Detail #1
World Editing Detail #2
EXTRA MISCELLANEOUS
Overview
Drop anything you are working on and don’t have a good home for here.
Crazy idea #1
Crazy idea #2
“XYZ APPENDIX”
Provide a brief description of what this appendix is for and then get down to business and provide data to the reader.
“OBJECTS APPENDIX”
“USER INTERFACE APPENDIX”
“NETWORKING APPENDIX”
“CHARACTER RENDERING AND ANIMATION APPENDIX”
“STORY APPENDIX”