How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document?

How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document? A game design document can be defined as the written source where the entire backbone of a game is created and the teams move forward by agreeing on this backbone. The game design document helps the teams that will develop the game to proceed in a coordinated and informed manner and to ensure integrity. Each section of the game design document describes a specific phase of the game, and the teams of each specific phase are usually the addressees of each specific phase of the game.

The game design document is a reference for the entire game development team. In fact, for this very reason, the game design document is actually a compass for the game development teams to make their developments by staying true to the created structure of the game during the development process. 

For example, if you are working on a psychological horror game like Silent Hill, that game has to have certain standards. The emergence of ideas that will harm the elements of psychological horror, which is the main theme of the game, is also eliminated thanks to the game design document. So the game design document is also the point where the boundaries of your game are drawn. 

No matter how accurately the game design documents are prepared at the very beginning of the road, they will surely undergo changes within the limits of the limits created at the beginning. In fact, in large game projects, the game design document of the game is often updated and these updates are followed by the relevant teams and the changes made by the project are reported. 

It should be noted that frequently updated game design documents will lead to less frustration in the development of the game.

When preparing a game design document, some basic issues should be considered. If we need to mention them briefly;

• They should be simple and straightforward,
• They should be easy to understand,
• Ideas should first be brief and concise, then gradually elaborated in a comprehensible structure,
• Flexibility points should be provided in the document to allow the game development team to support the game with their own ideas,
• The document should be supported with conceptual visuals and sample visuals,
• If possible, the document should be prepared in an infrastructure that everyone can view instantly in an online environment and the people who need to intervene should be authorized to express their opinions in this structure.

A Personal Opinion: I recommend that the first notes created should be prepared with pen and paper because it is much easier to do a puzzle and the chance to take notes faster in moments of ideas increases with paper and pen.

Before moving on to our main topic, How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document, I would like to mention a detail.

First of all, on some social media platforms and forums, it is mentioned that the preparation of a Game Design Document is a thing of the past. This is complete nonsense. Yes, like every sector, the game industry is developing and changing day by day. With every change and development, processes undergo serious changes, but these changes are also reflected in the game design document. 

The key point here is to define the structure of your game and there will always be a need for this. Without this document, the development team will not know exactly what the game is and the company will suffer great financial and moral losses, so this document is a necessity. 

While hundreds of pages of game design documents were prepared in the early stages of game development, now more agile, clearer documents are prepared, so even if this document takes shape, it continues to be revealed.

Let’s take a look at How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document.

Ideas and Brainstorming

First of all, we need an idea, that we want to make a game in the psychological horror genre, we need to come up with an idea of the elements and the basic elements of the game, so we need to push our imagination to the limit and come up with a solid and original idea. Then we need to ask some questions to add depth to it.

• Why are we making this game? What is our goal?
• What kind of game are we planning? 
• What is our main idea? What kind of concept should we work on?
• What kind of result do we aim to achieve through this game?

After preparing the answers to these questions, we can start brainstorming with our team to create the game design with all our data. Especially if you are working with a team in this step, you should balance the tension and discussions within the team very well and at the same time ensure that this process is faithful to the main idea. 

Don’t forget that at this stage, you and your team should have a clear vision of what are realizable goals within the game. At this stage, you should especially pay attention to whether the ideas you come up with are suitable for the team you have and the knowledge of the team, and if possible, you should even get ideas from your team. 

You should not forget that if you cannot create a correct game mechanic, you will have to examine the problem from the very beginning and you will have to overhaul the concept and the structures you have built around it, which is never desirable because it creates financial and moral loss.

If we have passed this stage, we can now move on to the writing of our document.

How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document?

Introducing the Team When starting our Game Design Document, it is important to start by introducing our team. Because in large teams, this information is valuable when people are aware of each other and when preparing external presentations of projects.

Creating a Cover Letter: You will need a cover letter that clearly explains your project. You should explain your entire project with a method just like preparing a preface to an article.

Concept Explanation: You should explain the concept of your game very well. If we continue with the example of the psychological horror game that I always give in this article, we should explain the structure of our game in this psychological horror concept in a detailed and understandable way, even with plenty of visualization.

Explaining the Genre of the Game: What is the genre of our game? Yes, it may seem like we have explained the basic answer to this question in the concept, but in fact, the point we need to explain here is which of the clear game genres such as FPS, TPS, Survival we will be in. We should not forget that the whole game will develop with the ideas we will weave around this point.

Game World: It is important that we describe the overall world of the game and explain in detail how players will experience it. The game’s art and technical teams will be inspired by your descriptions here as they develop the concept designs and the Level and Environment design phases. At this point, in the beginning, nothing too advanced is needed, but examples of a 2D map or level view will be very useful. 

Story – Characters: This section is actually the main point where players connect with the game. In the story section, it is very important to accurately describe the setting, characters and setting of the game. 

You need to establish the plot, the course of the story and all the branching points that interact with the narrative at this point. Our main characters, friends and enemies, in other words, every interactive creature we encounter in the story should be explained in detail in this section. 

Especially at this point, it is important to be in contact and work with game writers as much as possible in order to get a quality result, or that the person is experienced and has serious knowledge in this field. 

It should not be forgotten that if the players who will play our game cannot connect with the person and people we have created here, it is not possible for the game to succeed. 

Especially in Narrative games, it is important to be as detailed as possible at this stage, but if your game does not have such a deep story, a short introduction, a rough summary and plot will also work. 

Mechanics: Yes, it’s time to make sure that our game is a game, and this will be revealed with mechanics. 

If we continue to explain without changing our example, in a psychological horror game, running, hiding, collecting the equipment we need in our process, crafting and the creation costs of these craft materials (which can be thought of as an economy for the game, but in this example, it can be thought of as the materials needed to create the product), solving various puzzles, etc. can be examples of these mechanics. 

In fact, mechanics are the point at which the players interact with the game. This is where using visual components is very, very important. The way of explaining the basic mechanics will vary from game to game, but at this stage it is very important and valuable to work with concept artists or to be able to visualize the mechanics by making the right use of artificial intelligence on behalf of small teams. 

At this point, if game mechanics and systems can be shown with Miro and similar tools, it will be much easier to make the narrative even more descriptive, but it is not necessary, you should not forget that you can prepare something even using Google Docs.

At this point, in order to strengthen the mechanics of the game, it will make the document of our mechanical systems stronger if we clearly create difficulties, additional features, rewards for winning and losing in the game, and the reflections of their advantages and disadvantages on our main character and add them as subheadings to our narrative. 

And again, at this point, the elements that will reveal the replayability of the game should also be specified, for example, the difficulty levels of the game, survival mode, etc. The replayability mechanics to be produced should be revealed and specified at this stage.

If we need to explain this point in steps;

• Basic Game Cycle
• Controls
• Player Interactions
• Enemies and Enemy Behavior
• Weapons and the Effects of Weapons
• Interactive Elements and their Effects on Gameplay
• Systems
• User’s Game Experience

Level: Yes, this is the point where the world of your game will take shape. If we think that the psychological horror game in our example takes place in a mental hospital, we shape each floor and region of our mental hospital at this point in accordance with the plot. (What is Level Design? If you want to learn more in detail, I recommend you to take a look at my content on my Youtube channel.) 

At this stage, it is explained what will happen to us at each stage of the game, what mechanics and interactions will be created and what awaits us at this level. At this stage, the data we created during the game world phase is of great importance. The visuals we created at that stage are directly used in the development of this stage. 

Again, at this point, the need to create a preparation screen to teach the game at the beginning of the game becomes clear and work is done on this. It is very important to plan this point correctly. In particular, points such as replayability, sense of discovery, transition mechanisms emerge at this stage. 

Interface: In the User Interface section, the menus, HUD and other screens that players need to interact with are determined. The main menu, health bar, mini-map, target markers, weapon information, kraft screens, settings menu, etc. should be clear, intuitive, in line with the theme and color palette of the game, based on UX data. 

Of course, you are not expected to do these in the game design document, but at this point, you should make these explanations and data accurately and with User Experience Research and visualize them by creating Wireframes. 

Sounds: The analyzes show us that one of the most important elements of a successful game is sounds. Human nature feeds on sensory organs and considering that one of our basic sensory organs is hearing, the importance of sounds emerges again. 

It is very important that every interacted element in the game has sounds and that these sounds are specific and compatible with the game. Having music specific to each level in the game and shaping the music according to the situation is of great importance for the atmosphere of the game.

At this point, if you are not a sound designer, I recommend that you do not go into technical details in the document, because this risks taking the result to a wrong point. However, it is important to explain the emotional structure of the game, the art design, the story and how you want it to make the player feel.

Technical Data: This is actually the subject of a separate document, as game design documents are different from technical design documents, but game design documents usually include a section with technical data. 

At this stage, data such as which game engine will be used in the game, which programming languages will be used, the technical requirements of the platforms where the game will be released, the projected system specifications (here, current hardware information arising from the analysis of the audience who will buy the game should be looked at) are clearly prepared. 

It should never be forgotten that it is important to create this point in a very detailed technical design document. 

Marketing: This area is completely optional. Especially if the game will be presented to an investor, the existence of this section is very important. It is important to explain step by step how and with which methods you will market your game, estimated marketing expenses, your target demographic data, etc. marketing details in detail in this section. Usually a game designer has problems with this part of the work and this point should be prepared together with the marketing team. 

Video

If you want to listen to my explanations on this subject and reinforce this subject by examining examples, I recommend you to watch my Youtube video, which I prepared in Turkish but also has English subtitles. 

Appendices and Closing

You can find the game design documents of the games that have been published and shelved as examples on the websites I have given below. 

You can contact me via my email address and the contact section of my website and send me your questions about the Game Design Document. You can also browse my consultancy page to get consultancy from me on this subject. 

In this article, I tried to answer the question of How to Prepare a Basic Game Design Document? See you in my next articles.