I'm currently trying to write up a design document for a little project I want to do myself but I want to make sure that I do everything properly, including the design documents and the other ancillary parts of the game. I've done quite a bit of reading on what is expected in a game design proposal and the technical documentation that goes along with it but I am not sure if I have been using the best resources. Basically I want to make the documents as near to being professional quality as I can (which is probably not all that near). Does anyone have any recommendations for good web articles on the topic? Or perhaps any books as long as they really are good.

There are plenty of resources that can be googled up to find out how to write a design doc, but honestly, almost all of them give completely different formats, requirements, etc. Your best bet is to just write it up, do your best and then show it to other people who you trust to understand game design at least decently. See if they get a complete feeling for exactly what your game is going to entail. Flesh it out further based on their questions and ambiguities that they point out.

As far as a tech document, these are quite complicated if you do not have a technical, game programmer-ish background. They can be as high level as just stating what technologies will be needed, but they will eventually have to get as low level as listing exactly what modules plug in where, what new code needs to be written, the requirements for writing that code, the classes, methods, interfaces, inheritance hierarchy, etc. that will be required for the new code and other nuts and bolts. There definitely is more standard and proven formats for writing tech documents, even if everyone does not agree on an exact format. I also suggest googling that, and just reading around. I just perused some of the first page articles, and they have some good info. Unfortunately, what I mostly use is a mish-mash of various chapters in several published books I own.

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Original post by jackolantern1 There are plenty of resources that can be googled up to find out how to write a design doc, but honestly, almost all of them give completely different formats, requirements, etc. Your best bet is to just write it up, do your best and then show it to other people who you trust to understand game design at least decently. See if they get a complete feeling for exactly what your game is going to entail. Flesh it out further based on their questions and ambiguities that they point out.

Thanks. I have been using quite a few articles I found with Google. The problem with web based articles is that if you don't know much about a subject it is hard to gauge their quality and accuracy.

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Original post by jackolantern1 As far as a tech document, these are quite complicated if you do not have a technical, game programmer-ish background. They can be as high level as just stating what technologies will be needed, but they will eventually have to get as low level as listing exactly what modules plug in where, what new code needs to be written, the requirements for writing that code, the classes, methods, interfaces, inheritance hierarchy, etc. that will be required for the new code and other nuts and bolts. There definitely is more standard and proven formats for writing tech documents, even if everyone does not agree on an exact format. I also suggest googling that, and just reading around. I just perused some of the first page articles, and they have some good info. Unfortunately, what I mostly use is a mish-mash of various chapters in several published books I own.

Thanks again, the technical document is actually the bit I feel most confident about as I am a programmer at heart. I just want to make sure I have experience of all aspects of game development not just the programming, hence this question. I'm trying to make sure that I do everything for this project in the hopes that it is slightly better planned than my last attempt which just ended up changing quite often as it had a weak design base and was basically just done on the fly.

Unfortunately the (big budget) videogame industry is decidedly less progressive than the film industry when it comes to picking up on new ideas, so companies generally don't have a submission and review process for GDDs like films studios do for pitches and screenplays. What this means is that nobody set a universal standard for GDD format or content, so have fun.

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Original post by Cromulent it is hard to gauge their quality and accuracy.

They're better and more accurate than nothing! (^_^) Choose whichever ideas you like best and use them as you please. You're the person who needs the doc (you're not writing it for someone else.) Just plan out what needs doing, and try not to overlook necessary details.

http://www.sloperama.com/advice/specs.htm (there are more links at the bottom of that page)