strategy game likeRise of Nations. What the games accomplish and the experiences
they provide are too radically different from each other, and hence their design docu-
ments must be different as well. Sure, within gaming there are certain genres or types
of gameplay, and the design document format for a given genre, such as a first-person
shooter, can be standardized. But even then, as the form of the shooter changes, as it
implements new gameplay styles and mechanics, the structure of the document will
need to adapt to these changes in order to communicate them effectively.
Inauspicious Design Documents......................
As I previously recommended, it may be useful to try to get your hands on some profes-
sional game design documents in order to give you an idea of what the industry expects
in such specifications. However, you must be careful. It is likely that the document you
obtain will not be any good. Many of the documents that have been used for published
games and that were written by experienced professionals are truly terrible. By way of
example, and in order to best teach you what to avoid, I will explore a few of the differ-
ent types of horrible design documents, and why they fail so miserably at what they are
supposed to accomplish.
The Wafer-Thin or Ellipsis Special Document .............
These thin little volumes, certainly none longer than thirty pages, startle and amaze
the experienced game designer with their total and complete lack of any useful content
whatsoever. They use meaningless descriptions like “gameplay will be fun” and
“responsiveness will be sharp.” In these documents, many comparisons to other
games are made: “This plays likeSuper Mario 64” or “The game has a control scheme
similar toQuake.” While such comparisons can be slightly useful, as I have discussed,
the writer of the Wafer-Thin Document almost always fails to explain the control
scheme ofSuper Mario 64orQuakein any detail, let alone the scheme to be used by the
game in question.
374 Chapter 19: The Design Document
The design document
for a first-person
shooter, such asHalo,
would be extremely
different from one used
for a strategy game.