Hello, Okay this might sound silly and terribly amateurish (but hey I am a real amateur still!). I was wondering how long an average game design document is? Should it be long or short? I hope long, because I haven't started on the real core and I already at 20 pages, without any drawings, pictures or make up. Just a basic text. So, I'm imagining it would end around 50 pages text...Is that average? Sorry if ths might sound like a silly question, but I was wondering. WritNick

If your design document is long, then try to create a summary version that is about 1/4 of its length. Design documents are about how detail you can get your game without going too much into the game as in giving out clues to how to play certain portion of the game (spoilers of the story). The length of the document is not the important part, but the ability for others to understand your document without getting overwhelm.

This is completely dependent on the game and the contents of the document. Different companies have different expectations of what will be in their "design documents," and even that changes depending on the focus of the document itself. Depending on the game and the team involved, your design doc could be anything from a few notes written on a white-board to a 1000 page book detailing every aspect of your game (I've witnessed both).

The main thing to be sure of is that your design document effectively describes your game to its intended audience. If you're writing the document for a publisher or other non-technical audience, then you don't need to detail out how the sound manager is going to interact with your file system and so forth. Similarly, if you're writing a technical document for your programmers, they're not going to care that your target audience is age 2-12, which represents < insert statistic here > of people who will buy < insert product here >.

So with that, if you feel that your document adequately describes your game-play such that there would be no questions from its intended audience, the length is somewhat irrelevant and subject to opinion.

I would say that while length isn't really a concern, the content of the document is important. Some of those 20 pages could just be your thoughts randomly tossed around and long descriptions of simple things because you're trying to work out the idea by typing it out instead of thinking it out and typing the final idea.

It would be a good idea to let someone look over it and help trim the fat. One of my game design docs is at 25 pages or so, but that's just because I type down any idea that comes to me. It's less of a design document and more of an idea document. Is that what you have? Or is it all neatly written and clearly defined things?

Also page count isn't really telling us anything... 20 pages of text at font size 20 is like a few pages of text at font size 10. Are you spacing things out a lot? Using big font? Using lots of line breaks or horizontal bars? Are some of those pages index pages? Etc.

This is one of those questions where you ask one thing, but actually mean to ask something completely different.

What you're really asking, I suspect, is "Am I wasting time writing a whole load of crap that nobody will ever read?"

The answer to that depends on what you're planning to do with this document.

If you're actually planning on getting it made, then it kind of depends on how well written it is, and who it's written for. Write your DD for developers, bearing in mind that developers hate unnecessary reading. If they have to trawl through pages of storyline and lore or class designs to figure out how what camera to use or what level 3 should look like, they're quickly going to stop looking at the DD and just do their own thing. I'd actually suggest keeping lore and storyline in completely separate documents, because for much of the development process, these are irrelevant to 99% of the people who will work on the game.

If it's for a portfolio piece for getting a job, 50 pages is way to long, although you may be able to extract key parts of it as samples.

Answering Konidias,

It isn't just a idea document, that's something of the past. It is, as I'm writing it, a structured document with headings, paragraphs, divided in ranging subjects. Font is for the main text 12 (though thinking changing it to 10), for headings 14 (smaller headings 13).

My working method is writing my random thoughts down on a piece of scrap paper and when it is any good, I write it in the game design document under the correct heading, if it is present as of yet.

Whether it is clear? I hope so, I hope it conveys the ideas that are written down. I'll notice when I'm going to ask an artist to draw up some of the ideas so I can add that + to see whether it describes the concept as I had it in my head.

Answering Sandman:
I'm writing this to be read, yes, by friends. This is more of an hobby. I read a lot about this: Getting a game published before I started. So basically, I'm doing this for the sheer fun of writing a random idea, but I want to do it the right way.

I don't know anyone in the game bizz, so that it ever comes to reality is, face it, next to nothing. So basically probably for portfolio and just getting experience to see whether it is something for me.

(Also reading C++ for Dummies and learning how to draw so I can be more useful and saying this to show I'm not to lazy, just extremely fresh enthusiast, hehe)

Thanks all for answering. Hugs for all.

[Edited by - WriterNick on September 2, 2009 11:32:07 AM]

Quote:

Original post by WriterNick I'm doing this for the sheer fun of writing a random idea, but I want to do it the right way.

Then any way that is fun for you to do it is "the right way."
In case this will help:
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/specs.htm
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson13.htm
And in those pages you'll find links to sample game designs.
I have a sample game design too but I don't publish the address of it (email me privately if you want it).

Seems a lot of people have a lot of ideas what should be in a design document and what should not be in a design document...perhaps I'll be writing in parts to incorporate all inputs in it...

Well...perhaps that book I ordered on the Game Design will shed light on the mystery!

Anyone read: "Game Design: Theory and Practice"?

You have to hate to live in a country with little to no game dev culture, beside in the small town of Oudenaarde (I live in Belgium) where you have Larian Studios. All books and other materials to learn about the subject have to be imported( Ergo more expensive)

Anyway, I want to thank Tom for his most useful lessons and all the others who have replied for their input.

I know I am a late-comer, but it really is all down to the target audience. One recent 'AAA' title's GDD for Eidos was about 100 pages without any technical data; that was how much detail they wanted.

I have also seen a project for Microsoft whose GDD was about three pages long, but that was still at the Proof of Concept stage.

At 50 pages, I think what you have are a selection of different documents bolted together. I would personally break it up into smaller chunks, like a mechanics document and a combat-system document, then pare down the GDD into something that explains the game while leaving the gritty details in the sub-documents.