Right now my team is not so big...We are about 6-7 people

But if you don''t want to kill your arse by writing a 150 pages design doc, are there any other ways of organizing it?
Does a weekly letter work for instance?

Im just curious...

And DragonSoft: Thanks for the tip, i''ll check that out

Regards!

How do you hope to have any idea of knowing what you need without some central reference for it? How are you going to ensure that everything gets done without a definitive list of all the areas that need covering? How are 2 people going to be able to produce code or assets that work together without a common baseline to work from? The only time you would ever not need a design doc, is when it''s too obvious to bother writing down. If you "actually don''t know exactly what we should write" then you need a design doc more than anyone...

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Kylotan: I know what to write... i just dont know how detailed i should write stuff... i mean, i don''t know if something obvious and whats not.

quote: Original post by Sir_Manfred
i mean, i don''t know if something obvious and whats not.

assume that nothing is obvious - it will help prevent fuck-ups later on.

I think that you probably won''t know exactly what is obvious until you''ve completed a few projects. I think that you might be able to do reduce the process if you set up a schedule of when to have certain aspects of the game done, then right up a detailed list of what each member has to do by the next minideadline. Basically what this would do is split your Design Document into multiple parts. I don''t know if this will really work for you, but it might help. As far as how detailed things should be, a good idea is to take a week and just imagine you live in your game''s world. Basically just describe everything as well as you can, even if the detail seems completely irrelevant, like what color socks your main character wears and his favorite food, you may discover that a minute unimportant detail can be included to make your character more real.

~ The Dragon Is Feared By Many ~

by Hase:

quote: assume that nothing is obvious - it will help prevent fuck-ups later on.

Exactly, anybody remember the Under Siege 2 line, "Assumption is the mother of all f***-ups."

Write anything that comes to mind, organize it as necessary.

I''m working alone on a few projects and I usually can''t keep track of everything myself.

Diodor: I agree, I actually try to be a part of a c vs. c++ thread once a week or so.

granat: lol

Separating the technical specifications from the design doc is also important.

So write a verbose design doc and a succinct tech doc and you should be covered from all sides.

Remember what goes where though, you would do well to read a few of the articles covering this stuff. I should be considered a game development n00b, but I''ve read so many articles on so many areas of game development in the past six months I can take part in most any discussion with at least a vague understanding of what everyone is talking about.

SO READ ABOUT IT...

George D. Filiotis
Are you in support of the ban of Dihydrogen Monoxide? You should be!

Well,
I''m working on a senior design project for my university and for that we have to write a design document (actually we have to design all fall semester and we only start coding second semester), so i''ve pretty much learned the advantage of having a design document. However, I can also see some disadvantages, the main one being that it is hard to update and distribute to all members of the group.
Recently for a game design class I am taking, we had Bob Bates (from Legend Entertainment) come and give a talk, and I hung around to ask him some questions. One of them was about what he though of design documents, and this is what he said (summarized from memory):
I think who doesn''t use design documents is the type not to comment their code. Writing a design document for a game, though, is hard because of the changing features and stuff that just are natural to a game design project. What we decided to do at legend was instead of typing out a design document, we made a WEBSITE for the members, and the game designer writes all the changes, specifications, and everything else that members will need for coding the game

Well, that''s just my (Bob Bate''s) 2 cents.

regards,
riz

I aggree with some that design docs aren''t always needed, I guess it depends grossly on the size of the game and/or the team you are working with to make that game.
From personal expereince, I enjoy having one and actually love to write them. They put everything down and are a game in theory.
Besides, I don''t even use the design document alone to communicate with team members anymore (they end up skipping stuff). I accompany the design docs with a short technical doc that has all the important parts for each member such as the programmers and the artists. These technical sub-design docs layout all they information that these specific members need to know, the main design doc is just the compilation of them all and for some, is just too much to search through. Things have been flowing better since I have started doing it this way. When changes are needed, the new "editions" of each sub document come with the changes highlighted, the original only acts as the full scale model.

www.planetmorningstar.com

 

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Watch in bewilderment as he proceeds to hump the wall.
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quote: Original post by Sage13
I aggree with some that design docs aren''t always needed, I guess it depends grossly on the size of the game and/or the team you are working with to make that game.

All kind of projects and all kind of teams need design documents. Otherwise it would be just luck....



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Hakan Yuksel
3TE Games