Advertisement

Need feedback for a game design document.

Started by March 28, 2014 01:39 PM
2 comments, last by Quotex Quotenmeister 10 years, 9 months ago

Hi, I am currently working on a Game Design Document for a game idea I have.

The game is a in-depth drag racing game, intended for Touchscreen devices and PC.

I've been fidling around with this ideas in my head for a while, and I decided to make a game design document in the hope that people can help me on this game (I s*ck at coding, but am an Okay Graphics artist and designer, i think.)

Attached is a small part of the GDD covering an important feature of the game: Transmission systems.

This game design document was made in about 2 hours, so don't expect it to be top-of-the line. But I think I covered the feature pretty well.

I might be able to pay those who are interested, but i have pretty much a zero-budget sad.png

Link to the GDD:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ubv2VKrAQK8XZiZiVGOk2FtO__3D6yqtzr6v-kbg6V4/edit?usp=sharing

Feedback, Comments are apreciated, and if you want to help me with this game, let me know

EDIT: I am only show this one feature at the moment to see if it is explained properly, it wouldn't be very usefull if i wrote the whole document when people can't understand it.

The format of the document isn't bad. You need an editor though to go over it and fix all the grammar mistakes and typos (ie: "No Go" not "Nogo", which still doesn't make much sense grammatically: "Can not go" would be more correct, or the even simpler "STOP"). I notice that all the transmissions seem to go bad around 120k, so is there really that much difference between them in that regard?

Clean up the grammar - especially in the examples and when giving directions: you really need to be clear there, and you're off to a great start.

"The multitudes see death as tragic. If this were true, so then would be birth"

- Pisha, Vampire the Maquerade: Bloodlines

Advertisement

I understand you only described one feature, and this is a good example of the level of detail required to pitch an idea to someone else. I can't tell if there's anything wrong with what's written because you only described a single feature. In a way I kind of expected you were describing the entire game in one document, but this is a nice surprise.

Good

Visuals, some people like me would prefer most of the description to be in pseudocode and pictures. So if you have a bit of a flare for drawing don't hold back.

Bad

The details are mostly written, so you'll only gain an understanding from someone who's already in a world of cars. I know what a transmission is, manual, automatic, and semi-automatic, and I've seen it in enough games that you could have probably said, this is a picture of how it looks. You must choose these transmissions. Programmed with these restrictions.

If this were completely alien, entirely new to me, I'd be excited about it and confused. Seriously though I can't properly imagine not knowing how a car works, even an imaginary one.

Some of the Pros and Cons were redundant because of this very thing.

Suggestion

The title of the document is too vague, seen at top-left in the browser, it would be a good idea to name the document by the feature, if you only describe that one feature.

Transmission Systems, is a lot more clearer to you and anyone looking for a specific feature than just (Game Design Document). If you view from the google folders it's the first thing you'd see.

I don't know how your folders are organized, but this would be my only gripe.

Document complexity

You have a document that you can show to someone else to get the idea across, it's granular enough, but if they don't understand the terms you use they might not understand how it fits. "Lighter (Less taxes on some models)" this kind of sounds like I'll be getting taxed.

And I notice you went overboard, describing exact strategy with a player's guide motif. It doesn't need changing, but it may have been unnecessary.

First impression here on the forum

Considering the way you presented it here, on the forum, this is pretty much a beginner project and a very generic drag-racing simulation, so you'll be attempting to emulate a set of standard details found in driving. You shouldn't want help unless you encounter major difficulty and require a morale boost.

In this forum, mostly, I see and hear people want to work on their own games. Do you have a team of people already helping you with this? If not, consider you don't need a very complicated design document for a do-it-yourself project. You'll want a broad description, and in the features, you can make lists. Mostly a list is useful only for yourself so you can prime your brain right before you start writing pseud-code.

I've read about the idea guy. It's a serious misnomer. You really want to avoid the lazy team.

-snippet-

I'll work on this, English is and will always stay my second language (the first one being dutch), but the descriptions in the image were kind of jokingly done, since it's just a place holder for now.

-snippet-

I will work on shortening the amount of text needed to explain the feature, i already started working on some more imagery, The main problem i have is that i am really not good at coding, i can build a simple website out of blocks at best. I see myself as a person who always likes to improve upon someone elses ideas, but never really is able to do so...

As for the title, it's kind of the title i'm thinking to name the game, and all the features will eventually be in this design document, the other stuff in my docs folder is a lot of school-or-other-game related stuff.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement