without being involved in a game’s creation until it goes gold master, one cannot truly
be considered to have designed the game. A designer who takes any pride in her work
will want to be there throughout the project, ready to change the design as necessary to
make it the most compelling game possible and updating the document as the design is
changed and revised (and rest assured it will be continuously changed and revised). A
committed game designer will want to be there to balance the weapons, the AI, the con-
trols, and certainly the levels. She will want to make sure the game follows the focus
through and that the initial vision is realized.
If a designer writes a design document and then passes it on to others to actually
build, the people who do the actual creation will change the design to match their own
interests and artistic drives. The design document will be a springboard for their own
acts of creation, not the original designer’s. The design document is an integral part of
the game’s creation, perhaps, but a design document is not all that is required. To claim
any sort of meaningful authorship on the project, a designer needs to be involved for the
duration. In a way, writing the design document is the easy part of computer game
design. Actually taking the document and creating a compelling gaming experience is
much, much harder.
Chapter 19: The Design Document 381