Use 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

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

“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.

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?

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”