Hi everyone I have some questions about design docs Do people normally put EVERYTHING into the design doc? I mean do they have the entire game planned out in the doc and have the game engine designs and all the story and all the text that will be said included in the design doc? Right now i''m writing the design doc for my game and i''m not sure if I should make a separte doc for Technical stuff like engines and stuff like that or if I should put everything in one big design doc And also would it be good to have what NPC''s will say included in the doc too or do you not need to go into that much detail when making the doc? so what do you guys do when you write your design docs? thanks alot Kungfudude

Well ... you can find a lot of design docs on the net...

The best (I think) and most complete I''ve found is :

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/forsey/448/UBCSyllabus_2001.html

Look at section : Primers & Templates for Workshops & Project


For myself, I''ve changed some stuffs about these documents and now I''m always using them... It''s a long and hard work to design a game but when you''ve planned all things, it''s so easier to make it!

Hope it helps.

hey thanks alot i''ll check it out


Kungfudude

I prefer to keep the game design and technical design documents seperate. I cross-reference occasionally between the two, but its easier when your in development to be able to reference just the technical or design details.

You should generally put most to all of the game in the design document. Otherwise each member of the team will have a different idea of what the game is. Have the team agree on what they are doing, put it in WRITING, and go about your merry ways developing.

One thing that really helps is to make your documents living. No game is ever perfectly constructed in the beginning and followed to the T. Make sure when design/technical changes are made, that it is noted in the document. For the two projects I''ve been on in which a Game Design Document and a Technical Design Document were made, both were disreguarded half-way in development. Documentation is very important and keeps the team together, so make sure your documents represents what''s actually in the game.



- Kevin "BaShildy" King
Game Programmer: DigiPen
www.mpogd.com

thanks for the help guys

but one more question
could you give me an idea of what exactly goes in the design doc and what exactly goes in the technical design doc?

it would be much appreciated

thanks

KungFuDude

In the game design document you explain how the things are working from the player point of view, statistics about units, even formulaes like:
"when the unit is climbing the hill it''s speed is lowered with 50 percent" or "it''s speed is modified like:
instantSpeed = speed * cos (slopeAngle)"

The units stats are:
- speed = the movement speed in meters per second
- hit points = how much damage can the unit takes before it dies
- damage = the damage the unit delivers in one attack

Always clear all the things.

In the tech design document (who is written by the lead programmer most of times) is "how we implement that":
"unit stats is the following strucure:

typedef struct sUnitStats
{
float speed;
WORD hitPoints;
WORD damage;
}TUnitStats;"

or "dmg = max((attack-target.defence)*damage, 1)"

I hope you got the idea...ask again if you want more infos.
Good luck!


-----------------------------
Codman - "The source for all things"
"We design for eternity"

Mail: Codman_Wu@personal.ro

quote: Original post by kungfudude
Do people normally put EVERYTHING into the design doc?

In the beginning, most people tend to. I used to try and make my design docs describe every single element of the game. The problem with this is that after a while you'll get too mired in the details and lose the general overall scope of the game. And this is before you've even done anything! It's best to make a general design doc that outlines everything but doesn't go into any detail (for instance, say the player will have 15 weapons in the game, but don't go listing the weapon names or their attributes). This leaves the document more flexible because a lot of things change during actual development. Here's the thread that changed my outlook on design docs.



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