Before writing the design document, you should have worked on defining your
game’s focus, as I explored in Chapter 5, “Focus.” That focus is an excellent starting
point for your summary. Recall that the focus is a summing up of your game’s most com-
pelling points in a single paragraph. Start with your focus as the opening paragraph of
your overview, and then use the following paragraphs to go into more detail about each
compelling part of your game.
One of the body paragraphs of your overview should sum up the game’s story, if
any. In this paragraph, focus on the adventures players will experience during
gameplay, while not dwelling so much on the back-story or history of the game-world.
Follow the game through to the story’s conclusion, mentioning the different types of
worlds players will navigate and characters they will encounter. Always keep in mind
that this is just a summary, so it does not need to go into that much depth. Just touch on
the high points of your story and move on to the next paragraph.
The other body paragraphs of your Introduction should discuss different aspects of
your gameplay, using the key parts as outlined in your focus. What features of the
gameplay are most central to the game and will be most instrumental in making gamers
want to play your work for hours and hours? Of course, you should not focus on features
that all games have (“Project X includes the ability to save the player’s game at any
time!”) but rather on features that will make your game stand out, the parts that define
your game as a unique and compelling experience.
The conclusion should then come in and sum up the entire overview, with a special
emphasis on why this game will be so compelling to the user, what this game does that
no other game has. The reader should finish the page on an up note, enthusiastic about
the project. Think of this page summary as rallying the troops, psyching up the team,
and getting people excited about the project without forcing them to read over the
entire document.
Game Mechanics.............................
The Game Mechanics section is the most important part of your document. When look-
ing at a design document for the first time, this is the section that I look at first to
determine what the gameplay really is for the game. Indeed, the Game Mechanics sec-
tion could also be called the “gameplay” section, since it describes what players are
allowed to do in the game and how the game is played. By describing what sort of
actions players can perform, the Game Mechanics section defines the game itself.
Because of this, the Game Mechanics section is one of the hardest to write in the design
document. Describing gameplay is an extremely challenging proposition, and as a
result many bad game design documents skip this section entirely, preferring instead to
focus on story, visuals, or menuing systems, all of which are easier topics to write
about. The old saying goes, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
Writing about gameplay is just as challenging and imperfect, yet it must be done for
your design document to be useful to the team who will create your game.
Except for necessary references to the player character, you will want to avoid
detailing any specific game-world objects or characters in the Game Mechanics section.
Save those descriptions for the relevant content sections later in the document. For
instance, you will want to describe the possible effects of the different weapons players
might pick up and how players will control those weapons, but you will want to save the
Chapter 19: The Design Document 361