I’ve decided to write up a design document for my game. I’m not sure that it’s entirely needed, but part of doing this game is discovering what works for me as a game designer and programmer. At this point, since there’s only myself working on the game, there doesn’t seem to be a direct need for a design doc. However, at some point in the future I will be hiring artists, musicians and sound people to work on those parts of the game. I think it will help if I can give them a document that explains the whole intended game experience. I also think that it will help me to solidify some of the designs I’ve been rolling around in my head.

I have ideas for various game modes and different styles of play, and I’d like to get them all into one place. I’ve also been playing other similar games out there and I’ve been taking lots of notes on them. I’d like everything in a single document somewhere that can live and grow with the game.

But, “a-ha!” you say. “I’ve worked on games before and the claim is always made that the design docs will be living documents, but they rarely are.” Well, ok, so there is a part of me that realises at some point I’ll stop updating them, but I’m going to do my best. It would be nice to have those documents reflect the progress of the game.

The other thing that I really think this will help with is scheduling. I’m quite happy with my prototype and I’ve decided to move forward with that idea. However, at this point, most of my ideas all scattered all over the place and I’d like to start scheduling out the work. The design doc will help me to make a list of all the features in the game and what kinds of user interface requirements I’m going to have. From this I should be able to come up with a rough schedule for the game and determine whether or not I can finish it in the time-frame I had originally set out for myself. It will also allow me to prioritize work based on what I need to have finished before I can hire an artist or a sound designer. I don’t know why, but I love this stuff. Hooray for spreadsheets!

Owen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 7:16 am and is filed under Design, Project Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.