If you’re reading this blog or you are following from my ‘7 steps to first draft your game’, you might have a wonderful game idea you want to go ahead with, and you’re in the right place! This blog will go through the next step that would help you on your game development journey, writing a game design document (GDD). I will also be giving my GDD template you can use for your next game, so stay tuned 🎮
But, what is a Game Design Document?
I like to think of it as the center point of information about your game. When you have questions, you can look in the document to find answers. If new information is added, then it should be documented so everyone can refer to it later on. It helps keep you, and especially if you’re working in a team, on track.
Do I need to make one?
It might be tempting to go straigth into coding or designing levels for your game —and there’s nothing wrong with that. Writing documents may seem redundant and old-fashioned, but it could be useful in some situation such as…
- You’re interested in working as a game designer
- You’re a solo developer working on a game alone, and you are constantly adding new things that are not really related to the original idea to the game
- You want clear scope on your game
- You’re working with multiple people and need something to keep everybody on the same page
It might take some time in the beginning, but it can be worth-while in long term development project.
What should be in a Game Design Document?
There are a lot of ways to write a GDD, and I think it should be modified according to each game and your preferences. Here, I’ve created one with some starter topics that you can modify later on.
👉 https://www.notion.so/templates/game-design-document
I’ve created mine in Notion, because it is a tool that I’ve been using for to-dos, documents, and managing tasks personally and professionally. In this template, you can find the page organized to be easy to navigate. The high-level details are at the first page, and you can find detail documents for more information as well.
Again, I think the template should be modified to fit your needs, and I would love to hear your feedback if you used it. If there’s any questions about the template, feel free to reply or contact me as well.
Happy Gaming and Coding!
