A Game Design Document (GDD) Tutorial That Will Save You Time And Energy

Note: This is old content from GarrettMickley.com. I am no longer pursuing a game design career, but I didn’t want the content to go to waste, so I’m relocating it here. I hope the Dev.to community finds it useful.

I have a degree in game design from a state college local to my hometown. In our game design classes, the curriculum was pretty adamant that we have a game design document (GDD) for each of our games. The professors weren’t too terribly strict about how it was organized, but there were stipulations on what it should contain and how it should be updated.

Once I got out of college and started designing games on my own, I threw all of that out and found a better way.

If you’ve ever worked on a game before, you know that the original idea doesn’t always work out. Sometimes you end up changing your idea because the prototype just didn’t work right, or the play testers straight up said it “isn’t fun” (this is why I highly recommend prototyping and playtesting early on...more on that later). You then either have to scrap the game, or you pivot and salvage whatever is useful from the work you’ve already done. Either way, building and then having to rewrite a GDD before that is going to end up a massive waste of time.

The thing is, we can’t just get rid of the GDD altogether. There needs to be a written (or typed, or drawn, or musical) plan of what’s going to be in the game, what it’s going to do, and where it’s going to go.

So I developed a much shorter, easier to maintain GDD, and I made a template I’m going to share with you below.

The Rules

First, let’s discuss a few rules.

1. Use something like Google Drive. You can hold everything in a folder and interlink documents, plus your entire team will have access to the latest versions all of the time.
2. This GDD sticks to strictly the game design itself and doesn’t include any of the business end of things like marketing. I use a business plan for all of that.
3. No images/videos/media. Keep them in a folder and link to them. This is so the document is easily editable and no one will have to spend time rearranging images because text got added, or something.
4. If a change is made, do a “Save As…” and name it something like “GDD_2”, “GDD-3”, etc.

The Pages

First Page

Start Off With The Name

Name the game. You can use a working title if you want. I usually don’t think of game names until much later into development, but the game needs to have a name of some sort from day one.

Ex:

Garrett’s Good Game Of Game Goods

Add Your Team’s Names

Add the names of all of the members of your team. Hierarchy and ranking aren’t necessary, just put them in an order that makes sense to you.

Ex:

• Garrett Mickley
• Tom Ato
• Ollie Tabooger
• Willy Finish

Second Page (And All Pages From There)

Elevator Pitch

You should have an elevator pitch for your game. An elevator pitch is one sentence describing the game briefly but in enough detail that a person should be able to decide whether or not it’s something they would be interested in.

Ex:

It’s a cross between hockey, bowling, and shuffleboard, but two dimensional on a touch screen. (used for my game I Hate Red Squares)

Story Brief

A brief, one paragraph (at most) synopsis of the story. If the game is going to be some sort of epic with a huge story, put that in another document. If your game doesn’t have a story, you’re doing it wrong. Every game needs a story. If your story is only one sentence long, that’s okay.

Ex:

Steve (the player) wakes up on a deserted island. He has nothing but the clothes on his body, and a vast expanse of material in front of him. He uses the materials to build tools, shelter, and explore. When night falls, monsters come to attack him. He does everything he can to survive.

Gameplay Features

This is where you describe how the players play the game. Include all of the features that will be involved. Break down each feature into its own little section so that everyone knows what each individual thing is, and so that if something needs changed or removed, it’s easier to find. Include game controls in this part (A for Jump, D-Pad to move, etc).

Ex:

Players will tap their finger on the screen and send the blue circle towards where they tapped. The Ideas is to tap towards the red squares at the top of the screen. The red squares will then bounce around the screen. The object is for the player to knock all of the red squares off the top of the screen with as few taps of their finger as possible. Sometimes there will be grey squares, which are immovable obstacles.

Levels (If Needed)

Not all games have levels, but if yours does, you will need this section. Otherwise, just skip it.

If you do need it, include the level number, name (if appropriate), and a description of the level. As before, make sure each one is in its own section in case it needs to be edited or removed.

Ex:

• Level 1
• - The Darkness. Player has to move through the darkness and find a flashlight. The player wakes up and must navigate their room to find a flashlight. They won’t be able to leave their room until they do. The level ends when the player find the flashlight and approached their bedroom door to leave.

Menu Screens

Describe each menu screen and everything that will be needed in them. Most games have at least a main menu screen, a pause menu screen, and a settings menu screen. Many games also have level menus, character design screens, etc. These are important to list out. Make sure each one has it’s own little section so that if something needs changed or edited, it can easily be found and changed.

Ex:

• Main Menu
• - Three buttons(Level Select, Settings, Quit)
• Level Select
• - Has list of all 15 levels.
• Settings
• - Options to turn music and sound effects on or off.

Art Assets Needed

Here is where you will include all of the assets needed as well as brief descriptions. I will be up to the art director to discuss the details of the art with the artists who will be making hte assets. Don’t forget that there will need to be art for each level, zone, menu, etc, so this can be broken down here.

Ex:

• Level 1
• - One blue circle
• - One red square
• - Left wall
• - Right wall
• - Bottom
• - Background
• - Pause button

Sound Assets Needed

This is just like the art assets list above but you also list out the sounds you need.

Ex:

• Level 1
• - Tap sound
• - Circle hitting squares sound
• - Squares hitting squares sound
• - Circle hitting wall sound
• - Squares hitting wall sound
• - Square leaving screen sound
• - Circle leaving screen sound
• - Background music
• - Pause button sound

And that’s it! That’s all that’s really needed to throw together a solid GDD that can easily be modified.

Here’s the template I made for myself that I use for all of my games. Go ahead and download it. It’s free!