The Design Document04.04.2013

The Design Document • Introduction• Game Mechanics• Artificial Intelligence• Characters, Items, and Objects/Mechanisms • Story Overview• Game progression• System Menus

Introduction• Single page• Game’s most compelling points• Sum up the game’s story• Discuss different aspects of your gameplay• Conclusion

Game Mechanics• Describes what players are allowed to do in the game and how

the game is played• Introduce the simpler moves then more complex ones.• Describe how puzzles function • Modes should be described.• Technology• How the players see the world.• GUI

Artificial Intelligence• How the world will react to the players’ actions• How actions will be initiated.• Are they smart?• AI for a strategy game • What sorts of strategies will the enemy use to overwhelm the

players’ units?• How will the units work together?• If applicable, when will the computer player decide to build

more units, and how many will it make?

Characters, Items, and Objects/Mechanisms • Buildings in SimCity, blocks in Tetris• Characters: active and non player controlled• Items: notes, keys, or health elixirs…• Objects/Mechanisms: doors, switches, puzzle elements…• A game may contain all or some of them.• There may be more elements like skills and spells.• Group different subclasses together

Story Overview• A brief Story Overview, if story exists.• Big picture• Try to make it compelling.

Game progression• Describe in detail what challenges players will face• What story transpires on them• Visual aesthetics of the levels• How should the player feel• How difficult a level will be• The conditions under which certain enemies appear change

System Menus• How players will save and load their game• Type of interface (mouse, keyboard or both)

Bad design documents• Meaningless descriptions like “gameplay will be fun” and

“responsiveness will be sharp.” “Players will be given an option of many cool weapons. For example, the Gargantuan Kaboom does twice the damage of the players’ other weapons and has a special effect. The Barboon Harpoon will allow users to kill enemies at a distance with a nice camera effect. Other weapons will be just as fun and cool . . . ”

• Poor table of contents and the lack of an index • Talking about back story too much• No information about the gameplay • Too much detail• Including source codes• Technically unrealistic• Has not been updated

Conclusion• A design document should be:• Simple• Easy to read (not too long)• Comprehensible• Updated