Chapter 17 Game Development Documentation..........

Chapter 17 Game Development Documentation............

“Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain

no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same

reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no

unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences

short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that

every word should tell.”

— William Strunk in his bookThe Elements of Style

M

any a game designer will proclaim himself better than development docu-
ments, and will make them only to suit the managers who demand their
creation. Game design, these obstinate designers may insist, is something
one cannot write down on a piece of a paper. And these designers are partly correct;
writing quality development documentation is very difficult. Much of the development

306