This week we complete our series of lectures on "Hairy-Chested He Man Game Design Documents" by examining their contents, keeping them 'living' through the Production Stage, and considering why some Game Design Documents fail.
With our lab time, we'll take a look at Game Maker tutorial 16 (Warcraft 1) and work on developing your Graded Course Project Game as you advance it from a prototype due at the beginning of class to an Alpha version that is due next week.
Next week also features the fourth exam at the beginning of the class period. It is worth up to 15 points and covers the material from weeks 5 through 8 (including Chapter 9 and the CD-ROM from the Game Development Essentials textbook) and the required reading sections for those weeks on this web site.
The link below is the homework assignment due at the beginning of the next class session.
These links feature the supplemental material that you are responsible for knowing before the final exam (that takes place at the beginning of Week 11). Be sure to click on every link in this section!
Article: The Anatomy of a Game Design Document, Part 2 by Tim Ryan
This article provides guidelines that, when followed, will ensure that your design documents will be pertinent and to the point. Sections include: Functional Specifications, User Interface, Art & Video, Sound, Story, and Levels.
Sample: Design Document: Play with Fire
International Hobo's Chris Bateman provides a rare public look at an in-depth commercial PlayStation 2 game design document with Fireball, eventually released on PC as Play With Fire by Manifesto Games. Please note the use of the Case System to organize the document into numbered sections for ease of reference.
Samples: Student Project Game Design Documents by various authors
This .zip file contains some excellent sample Game Design Documents created by students for their final projects. You would do well to emulate them.
Article: Creating a Great Game Design Document by Tzvi Freeman
Witty and deep, this article is well worth a read before you start writing your own Game Design Document.
Document: Monolith Productions' Claw Design Bible
This is a professional design document from Monolith Productions in MS Word format (.doc) that is zipped up. You don't need to read all 100 pages, but do skim through this document. I suggest printing out the first 4 pages with the Table of Contents and adding that to your notebook material for this week.
Bibliography: General Course References
