16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Jason Bakker's Blog - A GDD Template for the Indie Developer
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by Jason Bakker on 06/04/09 04:58:00 am
Compa
8 comments
PROGRAMMING
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
ART
AUDIO I'm in the process of making a few different design documents at the moment, so that our iPhone
development team can have some options to choose from.
DESIGN
After writing a couple of docs, I've massaged my design document "template" into something that really
PRODUCTION works for me, and I think works better than the traditional formats for independent game development.
BIZ/MARKETING The documentation style you get taught in university and at game companies tends to have a large focus
on target audiences, marketability and "selling the project" to whoever is reading it, as opposed to
describing the project and laying it out in a more objective and easy to read manner.
Latest Jobs
View All RSS The pitch approach is great for when you're making something primarily to sell it - however, in the case of
indie game development, often your goal first and foremost is to make something good that you can be
June 16, 2020
proud of, and saleability/popularity, while still desirable, is not the highest priority.
Insomniac Games
Lead Level Designer After stripping that stuff out, and adding a couple of sections that are more important to focus on early for
Woodbury University smaller development groups, I came up with the following layout. The blue sections are only for story-
GAME DESIGN driven games. For games that are purely gameplay without a narrative, they can either be left out or
INSTRUCTOR replaced with a very brief thematic summary.
E-Line Media
Creative Director Intro
Remedy Entertainment
Game Director 1 paragraph description of the game. Describe your game in as few words as possible, as if you only had
seven seconds to explain it to somebody. Attempt to capture the feel of the game - general enthusiasm
Wooga GmbH
Lead Game Designer
("This is a fantastic and exciting 3D platforming game!") is less valuable than text written in-theme, such
as:
Digital Extremes Ltd.
Senior Lighting Artist
The dame's gone missing, and, just like always, you're to blame. Now you've gotta beat your way through
an undead horde before she's sacrificed to Zombie Jesus... and you didn't even get to eat breakfast. The
Battle for Zombie Breakfast is a horror/noir 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up starring Isaiah Stakes.
Latest Blogs
View All Post RSS
Character Bios
June 16, 2020
1-2 paragraph description of each of the major characters. Mention in particular how they figure into the
Finding, Choosing, and game itself, and the way the player will perceive them initially vs. once they get to know them.
Managing Moderators
The Pros and Cons of Rough Plot
Prologues
4-6 paragraphs. With as little backstory as possible, describe the game from start to finish. Include a
Spilt Milk Devlog 02 -
Black Lives Matter rough breakdown of what is cutscene, what is gameplay, etc. With each part of the plot, it should be
obvious how it will be presented in the game itself.
5 tips for reducing stress
as a game company
owner Gameplay Description
Is It Really Worth to
Mesh-Bake Your Assets? 1-2 paragraphs describing each distinct mode of gameplay, starting with core gameplay. For instance, Half
I Asked Ian Deane Life 2 would first describe general running around and shooting, then twists on the core gameplay (such
(Interview) as the gravity gun), then vehicle sequences.
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16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Jason Bakker's Blog - A GDD Template for the Indie Developer
Artistic Style Outline
Press Releases 2-3 paragraphs describing the artistic style and feel. Cover actual in-game art, UI and menus and sound.
June 16, 2020 Mocked up screenshots are preferred, if not, reference art.
Games Press Systematic Breakdown of Components
Conscript release a
A rough outline of what systems will be required (for example, ones that will show up on most lists: 2D
Demo
and a new Trailer for... and/or 3D renderer, state machine, save/load system, UI system, collision system, particle system, etc).
Include special features that, while they may not have their own system, will still need to be accounted
Vertigo Arcades
Transitions To New
for when creating systems (ie. day/night cycles, sound affecting gameplay, etc). If you will be using an
Normal API/SDK for a system, note it down - you'll still have to do some work learning/integrating the foreign
With... system.
'SOMETHING ATE MY
ALIEN' STEAM Asset Breakdown
SUMMER...
Action Packed UEDI: Similar to the System Breakdown, but for visual assets, text and sound.
Shadow of the Citadel
Demo... Art Assets: List each major area of artwork (Player, Enemies, Worlds, UI/Menus, HUD, Effects),
Control 32,000 Drones specifying roughly how detailed animations and states will be, and however much you know at this
in point about the pipeline/programs used.
Gripping Sci-fi Real Text Assets: Identify major areas (tutorial, tips, scripted dialogue/quests, dynamically presented
Time...
dialogue, narration), and attempt to gauge the amount of effort required on each section.
View All RSS Sound Assets: Similarly, the major areas (In-game sound, UI/HUD feedback sound, music, voice)
should be detailed and described.
About Suggested Game Flow Diagram
Editor-In-Chief:
Kris Graft The intent of this section is to lay out, step by step, what the player experiences from as soon as they
Editor: turn on the game until the end. While this can be generic and use a lot of loops (ie. Start Game ->
Alex Wawro Cutscene -> Tutorial -> loop(Cutscene -> Level -> Results Screen) -> End), it's probably a good idea to
News Editor: attempt to envisage how your game might be able to break up the monotony that is evident in that
Alissa McAloon design.
Contributors:
Chris Kerr The great thing about this section is it gets you really thinking about what your game is and how it is
Bryant Francis presented, as opposed to the amalgam of disjointed ideas in your head. The deeper you get into this
Katherine Cross Game Flow Diagram, the more confident you will be about what your game is precisely made up of, and
what the experience of playing it will be.
Contact Gamasutra
Suggested Project Timeline
Report a Problem
Here's where we get to the part where hearts break and tempers are lost - laying out a rough schedule for
Submit News
the game's development that utilizes the breakdowns that were made earlier in the document. Schedule
Comment Guidelines aggressively, but be realistic - you're probably not going to get all of your menus in and working in a day.
You don't have to be specific about where and when - the most important information to end up with here
Blogging Guidelines is the number of work hours per team member required, and exactly who will be responsible for what.
How We Work
Additional Ideas and Possibilities
Download Media Kit
This final section is a bit of an amalgam of everything that didn't fit in the sections before hand. It's an
appendix of all of the things that you didn't think were necessarily core to the game, but you'd like to
consider along the way. It's also for alternate possibilities - for instance, if you had two main characters in
mind, put the better one in the main document, and then the alternate here. Finally, if you have any ideas
that you're not sure about, but would like to prototype, then this is the place for that stuff as well.
Gama Network
If you enjoy reading this site,
you might also want to check
out these UBM Tech sites: That's it! Design Documents made in this layout can be anywhere from High Concept length (2-3 pages)
to full GDDs (anywhere between 5-50 pages). And finally, a few general bits of advice:
Game Career Guide
Indie Games
Be thorough, but don't be absolute. Remember that everything must be allowed to change and
evolve over the course of the project, and the design document is a general description more than a
blueprint. If you end up with a totally different game to the one that you laid out in the design
document, as long as it's better it doesn't really matter.
Don't be hesitant to name check other games; it's often the best way to get across a point to
yourself/your team members. That said, don't make that all your document is. ("The wit of Grim
Fandango meets COD4-quality FPS meets LBP user-creation" sounds great, but doesn't explain what
you're doing or how you're going to do it.)
Write well. Just because this is for your team's personal use doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to
make it as readable and expressive as possible - remember, this is the document that you'll be
looking back on during development to try to recapture the feelings and ideas you had about the
project in the first place.
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16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Jason Bakker's Blog - A GDD Template for the Indie Developer
HTH, HAND!
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Comments
Neil Gower 4 Jun 2009 at 11:07 am PST
Great post, you make some really good points. The distinction between documents for
pitching and contractual obligations versus what's needed to actually make the game seems
to be overlooked more often than not. The production documentation can be very fluid,
maybe even better suited to a wiki or similar collaborative documentation system -
something with easy searching, cross referencing, and multi-user editing. On indie projects,
perhaps a word processor can still pull it off; communication is probably tighter and the
scope isn't so big. What do you think?
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raigan burns 4 Jun 2009 at 12:05 pm PST
Kudos on explicitly treating the character and plot as optional, this is an insight which many
teams seem to overlook.
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Kumar Daryanani 5 Jun 2009 at 8:20 am PST
Indeed, thanks for posting this. It's not easy for someone who has never seen a GDD to
know what needs to go in it and how to maintain it, and there don't seem to be that many
resources on the subject online.
This will be very useful, thanks again!
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Jason Bakker 5 Jun 2009 at 8:42 am PST
Thanks for the feedback guys!
@Neil
Yeah, a wiki is definitely a good solution for a larger project. I guess what I like about linear
documentation is its comprehensive nature - it can be easier on a wiki to lose focus of the
level of detail at which you're documenting each section. That said, a wiki is still preferable if
the document is a collaboration with significant input from multiple contributors.
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16/6/2020 Gamasutra: Jason Bakker's Blog - A GDD Template for the Indie Developer
@Kumar
No worries - it was something that I needed to do for myself, and since I've also found a lack
of good GDD templates online, I thought I may as well share it. Hope it's helpful in your
endeavours.
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Eric Carr 5 Jun 2009 at 10:43 am PST
I usually throw a glossary at the end, especially if you have new kinds of systems or
mechanics in place.
I would also keep the timeline out though, that seems like a different animal, but that may
just be me.
@Kumar, I recommend "Game Design: Theory and Practice " It's what I used in college and
still pick up. It's got 2 Docs in it and goes into what each part is in depth.
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John K 8 Jun 2009 at 10:31 am PST
Good post, Jason. That's actually pretty close to the format I use for designing small, Flash-
based games for my current job. One thing I do differently is place the description of the
game's flow earlier in the document (usually as part of the basic gameplay description). I do
this to abstract the game at the highest level and then fill in the details. In other words, I list
the game's phases and show how they are connected, give a brief description of the phases,
and finally explain the mechanics of each phase.
One change I have been experimenting with is pushing the aesthetic details (art, sound,
etc.) toward the end of the document after all the nuts and bolts of the game have been
explained. I originally had this section about where you had it, but I think the artists were
getting tired of digging through gameplay descriptions just to figure out what the skies in the
background should look like. :)
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Kevin Gulling 29 Jan 2016 at 9:14 am PST
I know this is an old post, but still a great post in 2016. I constantly refer clients to this post
when they ask me how to create GDD. I am working on an automated GDD template builder
somewhat based on points made in this article. Kudos!
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Sergey Kormishin 19 Feb 2018 at 10:53 pm PST
I translated this article, here is Russian version:
http://coremission.net/gamedev/gdd-dlya-indie/
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