and i spent 10 years on my game's plan (mechanics and everything else, not code nor modelling or suchs).... the current version has lasted 5 years. very soon to be actually developted.
Great video! I think "One Above All" would be a good title that has religious themes without being specifically tied to a real life faith, plus fits really well with the battle royale concept.
This is a great name for it. I was thinking about a play on "Kill them all, let God sort them out" such as "sorting the gods out". But yours is far better.
This is an amazing approach. As a developer with ADHD, I need this type of document to keep me on track, and your example here provides a roadmap to help me develop such a document. This is one of the most helpful videos I have watched about game design and game development. WELL DONE!
@@douglasallen9813 great to hear. I think ADHD can be pretty manageable with creative focus if you’re able to develop the ability to keep asking “do I need to do this right now or can it wait?”. Trying to see the document as your friend; something which helps you make other decisions, rather than a “task” is helpful too. I have ADHD & autism so I know the struggle!
A very well done video! You explained the thought process, went in to the details and linked everything together, in a cohesive manner. This popped up on my feed and watched it during lunch, but got so into it I couldn't stop to continue working. Thank you for the insights and the work you put into it!
I don't create video games, but I've been working on board games and think this could work just as well for that! Great recommendations and philosophies all around!
It's never the answer people want, because it means there is going to be some critical thinking and "work it out yourself", but I've worked across 4 studios and they were all massively different. Sometimes they had methods I agreed with, and other times they didn't.
Life saver dud! the last one I created was a mile long, specifically the factions system bit. Had the whole system planned but no factions to fit in it XD.
This is a wonderful video regarding game design documents! Thank you for the better details than the other videos I have watched. It should make my documents even more digestible.
That's great to hear. I know a lot of videos try to do a "do it this way" kind of instruction. But developing workflows for a studio isn't really like that. Everything - including documentation - is working out the needs of the team and project. Methodology = Method + Rationale
Minimalist GDDs are the best, because what matters is not if all the relevant info is there, but how much of that info the reader will actually retain.
Excellent advice. Unless you are going into full production (which rarely happens), I find a couple of pages for a game design doc is fine. I usually try and aim for one page. I've worked with a few people now and it hasn't made a difference whether the design doc is one page or 100 pages. In my experience the same amount of work gets done (mostly none at all) and people ask the same questions answered in the design document anyway because no one actually reads them. Just my two cents.
Mind maps alleviate the stress of multiple tiers of depth in a document (I use Mindly but they're all similar). Large colored bubbles that compartmentalize various information make the OCD demon in my head happy.
It's funny how i immediately recognised the pixelated picture of populous the beginning. Though that's much more of an RTS while populous 1 & 2 are actual god games.
Thanks! I really like Sekret's video on GDDs too. It just felt like a bit of an overkill for what most people need. ua-cam.com/video/hzPZznSmbao/v-deo.html
Very cool video. You presented a great framework for a minimalist GDD, however I do think one core aspect of the game design phase is missing and that's the Core Gameplay Loop. I.e. what are the main activities the player does while playing the game. In your game's case it would be something like Gather Follower > Fight Enemies > Upgrade Followers > Gather Followers. I think it's important to determine the core gameplay loop early because that would allow you, or the programmers you are working with, to focus in on the core systems that need to be implemented first for a playable prototype to exist. I very much like the idea of presenting data differently, whether it'd be via tables, swatches, or visuals. Never thought of how good for the reader breaking up the uniformity of a wall of text could be. Great job!
Yeah I think you're totally right, although I think loops as a concept tend to lead to an oversimplification because a game is rarely just one loop running constantly. They are overlapping and loops of different size. I covered this a little bit in my deep dive on Underneath, but you're right it should be considered here - at least in cases where it's helpful to get the game idea across. It's something I wish we had a standardised way of diagramming.
My problem is I like slow, thinky games, but whenever I program something myself all I wanna do are make gamefeel tweaks and particle explosions. Haha.
Please tell me this is a real game! It sounds like fun, maybe I'm just seeing it from your perspective which at least shows you got the designer chops! ;) Great overview for a slim design document. I usually make messy/haphazard series of documents or none at all for my projects. Perhaps it's time to give this a shot and finally make a push through the ADHD factor whist forming my future game dev plans. Great video I've subscribed and liked.
wonderful Doc! Still haven'T sent ya anything cuz I ain't ready but you dropped this when i needed to hear your view about this! Honestly, I'm not procrastinating : looking for a job in game testing or anything in a game company to get experience so when i'm ready i can start a serious game design job at any role.... so I'm waiting till next month to finish my game design document / conception dossier, and then send it to you!! It's still in the works daily, it is moving forward (i create akk kinds of sutff for a minimum of 1-2 hours a day) but i am in the process of changing works, so livelyhood gotta be secured before I complete that hobby project...but I'll draw character concepts, add more details to put in the conception document,m and later to add to a bible for hte game. I'll compose music with LMMs free DAW, super game boy "freeboy" sound tool, and I'll burst out a melody or some beats then jam for half an hour minimum ... anything to get 2 hours of creativity per day out in my leisure time aside work. Not having a job now puts some stress so finding the new one takes a lil priority to completing a semi-pro indy sdossier for you to dissect and roast to help me learn how to design a fun new game for my first project. The "Wizard Squire: the mage's right hand" is an ongoing project ints in larvae stage!
Just keep truckin'! Not everyone needs a GDD or a design review. Have you seen if there are any gamedev meetups in your area where you can find folks to collaborate with? Might speed things up.
Definitely helpful to think of early on, especially if it’s something you’d normally neglect. Also very difficult to write about if you don’t have the specialist language. For most people’s ears there are probably only 3 schools of SFX; realistic approach, cartoon, and retro-8 bit style.
Great video really helpful insights here! You mentioned under the design pillars that beauty is somewhat redundant. Is that a general rule of thumb or something you would always consider to be the case? I'm thinking of games like Gris, Journey, Abzu etc. Would you still consider avoiding that as a design pillar even if the art is a key part of the project?
@@timmorrow1 I just think it’s such a central part of any visual experience that it might be pointless to mention. That said, very art-driven games like Gris might be the exception. In those cases, “pillarizing” Beauty could be a helpful way of saying “this is what this game is for and about, anything we do with gameplay needs to not get in the way of that”. Journey is another good example of something like this; there is gameplay but the game doesn’t sacrifice its vibe by constantly killing and punishing you.
@@IndieGameClinic Awesome reply. I was really wondering about my idea of making a non-violent beauty game being bad, but not sacrificing the vibe is a really good defense to consider strengthening.
"He loves and hates the GDD, just like he loves and hates himself." 😅 On one hand, the one or two times I made a nice GDD for myself before trying to make a silly game or a clone were the times where I got the furthest in development (although never finished anything because game dev is just a hobby for me and life gets in the way all too often...), but on the other, I've made at least a dozen attempts to make a GDD first and I just couldn't get through it, so I put the project/idea down. There something really antithetical to my brain about GDDs, cause I often am able to sit down and code a feature, but I have a hard time describing it beforehand. I guess I just don't have enough experience to be able to imagine the idea in a more concrete form.
if I were to use this I'd probably start off with a general description of the game, feed it to AI and have it fill out the design document, then revise parts that didn't sound right
@@ytubeanon if that works for you, fine, but the purpose of writing a document is to do the thinking yourself. The words that end up on the page aren’t so important, they are just a product of the process which puts them there.
Prophecy? that's old point n click game for PC I've played years ago. I couldn't recall the dev but I can recall that it has 3 hints for player similar to Goblins 2. It also features a summonable bat which could reward you with gold if you give him fruits.
@@IndieGameClinic I mean the creative director of Starfield has bragged in the past that they don't use extensive design documents, and by the things you have shared, I'd argue the few they do is really bad. What you shared clearly leads to a focused game that is not all over the place (like Bethesda's latest games).
@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 I haven't played Starfield but I think judging on Fallout and Elder Scrolls, they do a pretty good job at what they do. My advice here is for small developers who need help organizing their projects. The topline important thing is "do what works", and if what you're doing doesn't work (e.g. too much documentation, or no documentation) then try something else. I try to avoid this culture of ragging on AAA studios in indie spaces. It's not really relevant and I don't care for rage-driven gamer™ takes.
@@IndieGameClinic To each their own. If you think analyzing errors from big studios can't help indies because that's "rage-driven", it's a valid point of view.
@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 it’s something I’ve seen pop up a few times since I started. I think people who are here to learn how to create do not try to relate things to some company they have a grudge against. Or alternatively they are not really interested in indie games; they make games and feel let down by some AAA companies, but are not necessarily focussed on indie games. I don’t have this experience because I probably only play one new AAA per year maximum, so it is not really about one sector being against another, for me. I can only interpret the comments of strangers through patterns I see occurring over and over again.
Hey, nice video! However, you forgot Music & Sound Design. As a musician, I'm slightly offended. xD The music: Will it have traditional instrumentation or sound very synthy? Pure Ambience or Contextual? The sound: Realistic or stylized? Are there voice-overs, if yes, how much?
I would think of that more as creative direction than game design per se. Notice when I talked about art, I gave a lot of free reign to the artists and only talked about where the visuals actually related to some kind of game design need e.g. setting or clarity? Music is kind of the same here. Sure if someone is doing a GDD as a full project design bible then it may be important to talk about music this early on, but I would say for most projects, it would be busy-work at this point. Also - if you haven't yet, check out my Hazard Pay video where I chat to the dev and then make some tuneage for them! ua-cam.com/video/BDszSk-2Sko/v-deo.html
@@IndieGameClinic It might be somewhat specific, but isn't defining a color palette kind of the same? I mean, if a grimdark palette makes player units better stand out and as such, serves the gameplay, in the same vein, wouldn't an ambient soundtrack better suit the vision of a non-narrative-driven experience for example? Instead of the game blasting you with the equivalent of Pirates of the Carribean while your workers are calmly collecting wood or whatever, becoming over-bearing and distracting.
@@JanTGTX Yes, that’s a really good example. Like I said some of the art stuff I laid out here isn’t really game design and usually doesn’t belong in a game design document. Mentioning music in terms of broad style and approach is probably worth doing, to some degree. But I also suspect most designers are also better off leaving it as a “I’ll know it when I hear it” type thing at least this early in the project.
Trick: Let players choose their own abilities. Make a system like Project Zomboid where they have to choose good and bad attributes based on points. Good abilities decrease points, bad ones increase; goals is 0 or above. Many games do this and player feedback is always good. It creates endless stories.
@@iamagenius2646 I’m not sure how this relates to documentation? The game I talked about was just an example for the sake of making a tutorial, I’m not really making it.
@@IndieGameClinic it's a tip for the community. If they want to try it for their own. My comment is meant to complement your design document talk. I know you said something about abilities
For me i avoid putting business stuff in my GDDs such as genres, related media, target audiences, etc. Things you say to sell stuff to people so they do a buying action. Reason for this is that it sabotages the creative thinking process and makes the work inherently derivative of other people's prior designs, beliefs, and biases. Business planning should be in service to the game's vision, ensuring it gets to the people who value it. If the business drives the games development, the game is always a secondary priority.
That's fine if you're doing a hobby project or making an art-game. But a lot of online game-dev spaces are awash with people complaining that they can't "market" their game when they're really just talking about post-launch advertising. I already covered this quite extensively in the video, but if you reduce "marketing" to "advertising" then you've failed at marketing months or years before launch. An example would be; when George Tan designed Plants vs Zombies, he started from the perspective of wanting to make a Tower Defense game for younger or more casual players who may not have any existing knowledge of the genre. This then informed every design decision. The core theme may seem very random, but it explains all of the mechanics at a glance (zombies are a threat which slowly moves, plants are something which stays still, the VS implies the plants can fight, sunshine is the currency for plants and because it's sunshine it's generally a steady stream instead of coins you get as a reward related to specific things). The audience determined the level of simplicity of the game, and therefore how a bunch of things should work in terms of the theme and the mechanics and the relationship between those things. Having a set expectation of who the audience is helps prevent time wastage during development because you can easily narrow down what to include and what to leave (or at least put in the backburner as post-launch nice-to-have content). Inversely, I see a lot of games which are targeting a Steam audience but do simply not have enough crunch or depth to compete with similar games in the same genre as them. "Business planning should be in service to the game's vision, ensuring it gets to the people who value it." is a find take, but it starts from the assumption that there *are* people who will value the game. Often games developed in the way you describe - i.e. purely as passion projects - fail to find their audience not because of a failure of post-launch advertising [many developers want to think this is the reason, but it's not] but because the design process missed out some genre cornerstones, or just ignored the level of depth or polish the potential audience might want. Or the game is simply not unique enough from a slightly better competitor game, so all it is serving is "it's X but slightly worse in multiple ways". Listing competitor games is not about trying to "copy" them. It's about acknowledging that that is what your game will be compared to - the existing audience it might be played by - and how that might impact player expectations. For example, if you make a twin-stick shooter which uses an entirely different control schema from the genre-standard, you're going to put yourself in a weaker position because a larger % of your player-base will bounce off of it. This channel is dedicated to helping indies design better games, based on my experience in industry and on years of teaching and seeing what people tend to struggle with most. You absolutely do not have to use the methods I advocate for, but I think I did a pretty thorough explanation of explaining the "whys" of the methodology in the video itself. Everyone is free to continue working in the "passion project" way, but I would also argue that if that's your approach, then you do not need documentation at all. Gut-feel is fine for creativity, but it's not design.
Those are very valid points but make me realise I didn't articulate my thought clearly. I was writing on a phone while out n about. I did not mean "one should not think about" marketing, platforms, intended audiences, genres, and platforms at all when designing a game. Indeed that would be foolish for commercial indie steam / app store games. Rather ( how can I put this ). I like to have two documents, one for the game's design planning, and another for the game's marketing design planning. I do them both simultaneously but flit back n forth organically. The reason for this division is to create clear spaces for creative vs critical thinking. I think Mark Cerny's DICE talk about his Method for game dev pre-production and production phases articulates this separation of concerns nicely. I've just found in my game dev degree lot of students became confused about the purpose of a GDD. Is it a doc to persuade investors the idea will earn money, or is it a doc to explore a creative game idea. Most examples I've found lie on a spectrum between the two. I guess with experience the ability to switch hats so to speak becomes easier and can be done in a single document; but to the inexperienced it can lead to pitfalls where one is overfocused to the neglect of the other. Hence why I find having them seperate is helpful.
@ yeah that makes a lot of sense. Normal if I were working on a larger project I would have separate interlinked web docs for each topic. This video was really about “what does the MVP version of a GDD look like”, focussed on things that new devs are weaker at.
It looks like the link to your Fiverr profile doesn't work when clicked from UA-cam. I had to copy and paste it from the description to take a look at it ^_^U Additionally, I can't click on the 'Contact Me' button or see any of the gigs you mentioned in the video. Could this be because I'm in Spain, or is it because you were offline? If possible, you should allow people to send you messages even when you are offline, just in case :)
@@IndieGameClinic okay, what about Who is the Messiah? keeps the reference, degenders it, and also enforces/suggests the competitive nature of the game
Just finished the video, thought, „hey, thats pretty good!“ Checked your channel and as i saw your name i thought that you might be the person whose child photo i took from twitter years ago and painted characters next to it? Could this be?
@ whew, thats great and funny. Good sign you show up randomly in my yt feed. I’ll take this as a sign if faith, seeing you offer mentorships and consulting. I’ll go and contact you proper via email. Cheers.
@@lindersi all good - feel free to go direct to email if preferable. I’ve recently learnt that Superprof makes people pay to even contact you in the first place; which feels a bit gross
@@lindersi all good - feel free to go direct to email if preferable. I’ve recently learnt that Superprof makes people pay to even contact you in the first place; which feels a bit gross.
How's "Followers of the Chosen" for a name? A touch extracted from your working title, but catchy. Too cheesy? Maybe 'Devotus' which is latin for "to vow" or "to dedicate" or go with the english term 'Devout'.
@@IndieGameClinic Does it need to be an online multiplayer game? [...just a thought] I guess playing only AI might limit the "fun" of going up against other profits and such. [Thinking out load via text...] What if you compressed the data or represented it in terms of a swarm or set size groups instead of each individual follower being an object or struct. Leave the rest as a render problem. These are game breaking problem I tend to run straight towards. [Haven't released a game yet! :D] We all have our hangups. Well the name is yours if you want it. I just like the idea so I'd support you. Great video, I'll probably make reference to it whenever discussing design docs from here on in. Very functional! ;)
@@IndieGameClinic yeah maybe th country, stil getting: The Gig you were looking for is no longer available. Here are some other gigs you may find interesting. In Argentina currently, will be moving in a month or so :)
@@thewonderingvagabond I've found it; they want me to verify using my phone number - which was previously used for a different email when contracting at my last studio - fun times! Will hopefully get it fixed in the next week or so.
I'm waiting for Fiverr to verify my new account, due to my mobile being used for a previous work-related account on there. Fiverr being silly, I'm afraid. Can't really justify taking down or re-editting a whole video when the link will be ok in a week or so.
![How to Get a Developer Job - Even in This Economy [Full Course]](/img/n.gif)
I spent 3 days writing the lore... for my marble rolling game lol.
The temptation is strong.
Madness? This! Is! Marble Madness!
@@thygrrr HP Lovecraft Presents: Marbles of Madness
and i spent 10 years on my game's plan (mechanics and everything else, not code nor modelling or suchs)....
the current version has lasted 5 years.
very soon to be actually developted.
it is time for lore xD
Great video! I think "One Above All" would be a good title that has religious themes without being specifically tied to a real life faith, plus fits really well with the battle royale concept.
I really like that name. It makes me want to play it. I want to be the one above all lol.
This is a great name for it. I was thinking about a play on "Kill them all, let God sort them out" such as "sorting the gods out". But yours is far better.
This is an amazing approach. As a developer with ADHD, I need this type of document to keep me on track, and your example here provides a roadmap to help me develop such a document. This is one of the most helpful videos I have watched about game design and game development. WELL DONE!
@@douglasallen9813 great to hear.
I think ADHD can be pretty manageable with creative focus if you’re able to develop the ability to keep asking “do I need to do this right now or can it wait?”. Trying to see the document as your friend; something which helps you make other decisions, rather than a “task” is helpful too. I have ADHD & autism so I know the struggle!
same, but my approach is "gdd?? never heard of her!"
A very well done video! You explained the thought process, went in to the details and linked everything together, in a cohesive manner. This popped up on my feed and watched it during lunch, but got so into it I couldn't stop to continue working.
Thank you for the insights and the work you put into it!
@@Zok thanks Zok!
I don't create video games, but I've been working on board games and think this could work just as well for that! Great recommendations and philosophies all around!
Glad it was helpful! Although I could see a board game designer getting distracted by writing a GDD to avoid writing their rulebook, haha.
Once you said, "There is no one way to a game design document," I just had to subscribe.
It's never the answer people want, because it means there is going to be some critical thinking and "work it out yourself", but I've worked across 4 studios and they were all massively different. Sometimes they had methods I agreed with, and other times they didn't.
Life saver dud! the last one I created was a mile long, specifically the factions system bit. Had the whole system planned but no factions to fit in it XD.
Would be handy to include a copy of your GDD as an example in pdf form or something. Cheers for the vid!
yes, i agree
he doesn't actually have one
This video is very nice and fits my style more. My GDD looks like a tome and I really didn’t like it. Thank you for this!
Saved this one. Will use that guide for my next document. Thanks brother
This is a wonderful video regarding game design documents! Thank you for the better details than the other videos I have watched. It should make my documents even more digestible.
That's great to hear. I know a lot of videos try to do a "do it this way" kind of instruction. But developing workflows for a studio isn't really like that. Everything - including documentation - is working out the needs of the team and project.
Methodology = Method + Rationale
Minimalist GDDs are the best, because what matters is not if all the relevant info is there, but how much of that info the reader will actually retain.
Interesting, thank you. Now I just have to work out how to identify target audiences and what the appeal is for each! 😄
Excellent advice. Unless you are going into full production (which rarely happens), I find a couple of pages for a game design doc is fine. I usually try and aim for one page. I've worked with a few people now and it hasn't made a difference whether the design doc is one page or 100 pages. In my experience the same amount of work gets done (mostly none at all) and people ask the same questions answered in the design document anyway because no one actually reads them. Just my two cents.
Mind maps alleviate the stress of multiple tiers of depth in a document (I use Mindly but they're all similar). Large colored bubbles that compartmentalize various information make the OCD demon in my head happy.
In today's episode of Dr Joe, a new entry added to my journal: "14 forms of fun". Thank you for your work!
I like that it sounds like a Kung Fu Movie title - makes it hard to forget!
It's funny how i immediately recognised the pixelated picture of populous the beginning. Though that's much more of an RTS while populous 1 & 2 are actual god games.
great video, ty for sharing and discussing the thing most gamedev youtubers forget about
Thanks! I really like Sekret's video on GDDs too. It just felt like a bit of an overkill for what most people need. ua-cam.com/video/hzPZznSmbao/v-deo.html
great vid, thanks for sharing i am inspired now
Very cool video. You presented a great framework for a minimalist GDD, however I do think one core aspect of the game design phase is missing and that's the Core Gameplay Loop. I.e. what are the main activities the player does while playing the game. In your game's case it would be something like Gather Follower > Fight Enemies > Upgrade Followers > Gather Followers. I think it's important to determine the core gameplay loop early because that would allow you, or the programmers you are working with, to focus in on the core systems that need to be implemented first for a playable prototype to exist.
I very much like the idea of presenting data differently, whether it'd be via tables, swatches, or visuals. Never thought of how good for the reader breaking up the uniformity of a wall of text could be. Great job!
Yeah I think you're totally right, although I think loops as a concept tend to lead to an oversimplification because a game is rarely just one loop running constantly. They are overlapping and loops of different size. I covered this a little bit in my deep dive on Underneath, but you're right it should be considered here - at least in cases where it's helpful to get the game idea across. It's something I wish we had a standardised way of diagramming.
Never stop making these videos
Never !!!
God damn, I DO love programming explosions!
My problem is I like slow, thinky games, but whenever I program something myself all I wanna do are make gamefeel tweaks and particle explosions. Haha.
Great knowledge! Thank you :)
This has been really helpful. I've been fiddling way to long on my GDD for things that aren't even certain.
Really good video. Thanks for the clear explanation you gain a sub with this quality video look forward to your next one.
Please tell me this is a real game! It sounds like fun, maybe I'm just seeing it from your perspective which at least shows you got the designer chops! ;) Great overview for a slim design document. I usually make messy/haphazard series of documents or none at all for my projects. Perhaps it's time to give this a shot and finally make a push through the ADHD factor whist forming my future game dev plans. Great video I've subscribed and liked.
wonderful Doc! Still haven'T sent ya anything cuz I ain't ready but you dropped this when i needed to hear your view about this! Honestly, I'm not procrastinating : looking for a job in game testing or anything in a game company to get experience so when i'm ready i can start a serious game design job at any role.... so I'm waiting till next month to finish my game design document / conception dossier, and then send it to you!! It's still in the works daily, it is moving forward (i create akk kinds of sutff for a minimum of 1-2 hours a day) but i am in the process of changing works, so livelyhood gotta be secured before I complete that hobby project...but I'll draw character concepts, add more details to put in the conception document,m and later to add to a bible for hte game. I'll compose music with LMMs free DAW, super game boy "freeboy" sound tool, and I'll burst out a melody or some beats then jam for half an hour minimum ... anything to get 2 hours of creativity per day out in my leisure time aside work. Not having a job now puts some stress so finding the new one takes a lil priority to completing a semi-pro indy sdossier for you to dissect and roast to help me learn how to design a fun new game for my first project. The "Wizard Squire: the mage's right hand" is an ongoing project ints in larvae stage!
Just keep truckin'! Not everyone needs a GDD or a design review. Have you seen if there are any gamedev meetups in your area where you can find folks to collaborate with? Might speed things up.
@@IndieGameClinic i am not stressed or pressured, really motivated but finding a job as a beginnner/tester in the bunsiness takes priority right now
If it is a prophet based battle Royale where you are trying to be the best prophet out of several different people "most-radamus" might be a fun title
Ask you've asked for a title suggestions, I'd like to toss 'Manifest Destiny' into the ring.
"Last Messiah Standing"
Super helpful, thanks a ton! :)
[EDITED] What about sound design?
Definitely helpful to think of early on, especially if it’s something you’d normally neglect. Also very difficult to write about if you don’t have the specialist language. For most people’s ears there are probably only 3 schools of SFX; realistic approach, cartoon, and retro-8 bit style.
@@IndieGameClinic Ok, thank you for your help :)
thank you british Pedro Pascal 🙏🙏
@@benjattkk haha, I wish!
If you wanna laugh a little, you can call it “Prophet Sea”. Referring to growing sea of followers each prophet attains on their conquest.
Genial!
Great video really helpful insights here! You mentioned under the design pillars that beauty is somewhat redundant. Is that a general rule of thumb or something you would always consider to be the case? I'm thinking of games like Gris, Journey, Abzu etc. Would you still consider avoiding that as a design pillar even if the art is a key part of the project?
@@timmorrow1 I just think it’s such a central part of any visual experience that it might be pointless to mention. That said, very art-driven games like Gris might be the exception. In those cases, “pillarizing” Beauty could be a helpful way of saying “this is what this game is for and about, anything we do with gameplay needs to not get in the way of that”. Journey is another good example of something like this; there is gameplay but the game doesn’t sacrifice its vibe by constantly killing and punishing you.
@@IndieGameClinic That makes sense, in those particular examples the visuals dictate a lot of gameplay choices. Thanks!
@@IndieGameClinic Awesome reply. I was really wondering about my idea of making a non-violent beauty game being bad, but not sacrificing the vibe is a really good defense to consider strengthening.
"He loves and hates the GDD, just like he loves and hates himself." 😅
On one hand, the one or two times I made a nice GDD for myself before trying to make a silly game or a clone were the times where I got the furthest in development (although never finished anything because game dev is just a hobby for me and life gets in the way all too often...), but on the other, I've made at least a dozen attempts to make a GDD first and I just couldn't get through it, so I put the project/idea down. There something really antithetical to my brain about GDDs, cause I often am able to sit down and code a feature, but I have a hard time describing it beforehand. I guess I just don't have enough experience to be able to imagine the idea in a more concrete form.
if I were to use this I'd probably start off with a general description of the game, feed it to AI and have it fill out the design document, then revise parts that didn't sound right
@@ytubeanon if that works for you, fine, but the purpose of writing a document is to do the thinking yourself. The words that end up on the page aren’t so important, they are just a product of the process which puts them there.
Prophecy? that's old point n click game for PC I've played years ago. I couldn't recall the dev but I can recall that it has 3 hints for player similar to Goblins 2. It also features a summonable bat which could reward you with gold if you give him fruits.
All I want in life is a summonable bat who will exchange fruit for currency.
You should send this to Bethesda and charge them a hefty sum for consulting fees. They really need to hear this.
I’m not sure what you mean?
@@IndieGameClinic I mean the creative director of Starfield has bragged in the past that they don't use extensive design documents, and by the things you have shared, I'd argue the few they do is really bad.
What you shared clearly leads to a focused game that is not all over the place (like Bethesda's latest games).
@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 I haven't played Starfield but I think judging on Fallout and Elder Scrolls, they do a pretty good job at what they do.
My advice here is for small developers who need help organizing their projects. The topline important thing is "do what works", and if what you're doing doesn't work (e.g. too much documentation, or no documentation) then try something else.
I try to avoid this culture of ragging on AAA studios in indie spaces. It's not really relevant and I don't care for rage-driven gamer™ takes.
@@IndieGameClinic To each their own.
If you think analyzing errors from big studios can't help indies because that's "rage-driven", it's a valid point of view.
@@carlosleyva-calistenia6400 it’s something I’ve seen pop up a few times since I started. I think people who are here to learn how to create do not try to relate things to some company they have a grudge against. Or alternatively they are not really interested in indie games; they make games and feel let down by some AAA companies, but are not necessarily focussed on indie games. I don’t have this experience because I probably only play one new AAA per year maximum, so it is not really about one sector being against another, for me.
I can only interpret the comments of strangers through patterns I see occurring over and over again.
How about "Prophets Over People"?
Hey, nice video! However, you forgot Music & Sound Design. As a musician, I'm slightly offended. xD
The music: Will it have traditional instrumentation or sound very synthy? Pure Ambience or Contextual?
The sound: Realistic or stylized? Are there voice-overs, if yes, how much?
I would think of that more as creative direction than game design per se. Notice when I talked about art, I gave a lot of free reign to the artists and only talked about where the visuals actually related to some kind of game design need e.g. setting or clarity? Music is kind of the same here. Sure if someone is doing a GDD as a full project design bible then it may be important to talk about music this early on, but I would say for most projects, it would be busy-work at this point.
Also - if you haven't yet, check out my Hazard Pay video where I chat to the dev and then make some tuneage for them! ua-cam.com/video/BDszSk-2Sko/v-deo.html
@@IndieGameClinic It might be somewhat specific, but isn't defining a color palette kind of the same?
I mean, if a grimdark palette makes player units better stand out and as such, serves the gameplay, in the same vein, wouldn't an ambient soundtrack better suit the vision of a non-narrative-driven experience for example?
Instead of the game blasting you with the equivalent of Pirates of the Carribean while your workers are calmly collecting wood or whatever, becoming over-bearing and distracting.
@@JanTGTX Yes, that’s a really good example. Like I said some of the art stuff I laid out here isn’t really game design and usually doesn’t belong in a game design document. Mentioning music in terms of broad style and approach is probably worth doing, to some degree. But I also suspect most designers are also better off leaving it as a “I’ll know it when I hear it” type thing at least this early in the project.
Trick: Let players choose their own abilities. Make a system like Project Zomboid where they have to choose good and bad attributes based on points. Good abilities decrease points, bad ones increase; goals is 0 or above. Many games do this and player feedback is always good. It creates endless stories.
@@iamagenius2646 I’m not sure how this relates to documentation? The game I talked about was just an example for the sake of making a tutorial, I’m not really making it.
@@IndieGameClinic it's a tip for the community. If they want to try it for their own. My comment is meant to complement your design document talk. I know you said something about abilities
For me i avoid putting business stuff in my GDDs such as genres, related media, target audiences, etc. Things you say to sell stuff to people so they do a buying action.
Reason for this is that it sabotages the creative thinking process and makes the work inherently derivative of other people's prior designs, beliefs, and biases.
Business planning should be in service to the game's vision, ensuring it gets to the people who value it.
If the business drives the games development, the game is always a secondary priority.
That's fine if you're doing a hobby project or making an art-game. But a lot of online game-dev spaces are awash with people complaining that they can't "market" their game when they're really just talking about post-launch advertising. I already covered this quite extensively in the video, but if you reduce "marketing" to "advertising" then you've failed at marketing months or years before launch.
An example would be; when George Tan designed Plants vs Zombies, he started from the perspective of wanting to make a Tower Defense game for younger or more casual players who may not have any existing knowledge of the genre. This then informed every design decision. The core theme may seem very random, but it explains all of the mechanics at a glance (zombies are a threat which slowly moves, plants are something which stays still, the VS implies the plants can fight, sunshine is the currency for plants and because it's sunshine it's generally a steady stream instead of coins you get as a reward related to specific things).
The audience determined the level of simplicity of the game, and therefore how a bunch of things should work in terms of the theme and the mechanics and the relationship between those things. Having a set expectation of who the audience is helps prevent time wastage during development because you can easily narrow down what to include and what to leave (or at least put in the backburner as post-launch nice-to-have content).
Inversely, I see a lot of games which are targeting a Steam audience but do simply not have enough crunch or depth to compete with similar games in the same genre as them.
"Business planning should be in service to the game's vision, ensuring it gets to the people who value it." is a find take, but it starts from the assumption that there *are* people who will value the game. Often games developed in the way you describe - i.e. purely as passion projects - fail to find their audience not because of a failure of post-launch advertising [many developers want to think this is the reason, but it's not] but because the design process missed out some genre cornerstones, or just ignored the level of depth or polish the potential audience might want. Or the game is simply not unique enough from a slightly better competitor game, so all it is serving is "it's X but slightly worse in multiple ways".
Listing competitor games is not about trying to "copy" them. It's about acknowledging that that is what your game will be compared to - the existing audience it might be played by - and how that might impact player expectations. For example, if you make a twin-stick shooter which uses an entirely different control schema from the genre-standard, you're going to put yourself in a weaker position because a larger % of your player-base will bounce off of it.
This channel is dedicated to helping indies design better games, based on my experience in industry and on years of teaching and seeing what people tend to struggle with most. You absolutely do not have to use the methods I advocate for, but I think I did a pretty thorough explanation of explaining the "whys" of the methodology in the video itself.
Everyone is free to continue working in the "passion project" way, but I would also argue that if that's your approach, then you do not need documentation at all.
Gut-feel is fine for creativity, but it's not design.
Those are very valid points but make me realise I didn't articulate my thought clearly. I was writing on a phone while out n about.
I did not mean "one should not think about" marketing, platforms, intended audiences, genres, and platforms at all when designing a game. Indeed that would be foolish for commercial indie steam / app store games.
Rather ( how can I put this ). I like to have two documents, one for the game's design planning, and another for the game's marketing design planning. I do them both simultaneously but flit back n forth organically.
The reason for this division is to create clear spaces for creative vs critical thinking. I think Mark Cerny's DICE talk about his Method for game dev pre-production and production phases articulates this separation of concerns nicely.
I've just found in my game dev degree lot of students became confused about the purpose of a GDD. Is it a doc to persuade investors the idea will earn money, or is it a doc to explore a creative game idea. Most examples I've found lie on a spectrum between the two.
I guess with experience the ability to switch hats so to speak becomes easier and can be done in a single document; but to the inexperienced it can lead to pitfalls where one is overfocused to the neglect of the other.
Hence why I find having them seperate is helpful.
@ yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Normal if I were working on a larger project I would have separate interlinked web docs for each topic. This video was really about “what does the MVP version of a GDD look like”, focussed on things that new devs are weaker at.
fiverr links doesn't work for me. just the overview of the game dev category there
Thanks for the heads-up!
What application are you using for this example game design document?
@@Atticus_Moore just Google Docs here
Is there a way to see this pdf?
Hopefull this will work for ya drive.google.com/file/d/1KUitrk4VxZLCh6j517QOEkQ10QJWeQAa/view?usp=sharing
It looks like the link to your Fiverr profile doesn't work when clicked from UA-cam. I had to copy and paste it from the description to take a look at it ^_^U
Additionally, I can't click on the 'Contact Me' button or see any of the gigs you mentioned in the video. Could this be because I'm in Spain, or is it because you were offline? If possible, you should allow people to send you messages even when you are offline, just in case :)
Thanks Juan - turns out I can't use my mobile number to confirm my Fiverr account because it was used at a previous studio role.
He is the Messiah is a solid name
It's snappy and I appreciate the Python reference, but it maybe genders it unnecessarily
@@IndieGameClinic okay, what about Who is the Messiah? keeps the reference, degenders it, and also enforces/suggests the competitive nature of the game
@@ryderthefirst5023 haha, I like it. I'm very unlikely to ever actually make this game though.
Just finished the video, thought, „hey, thats pretty good!“
Checked your channel and as i saw your name i thought that you might be the person whose child photo i took from twitter years ago and painted characters next to it? Could this be?
Oh haha! Yes it is! Amazing :D
@ whew, thats great and funny. Good sign you show up randomly in my yt feed. I’ll take this as a sign if faith, seeing you offer mentorships and consulting. I’ll go and contact you proper via email. Cheers.
@@lindersi all good - feel free to go direct to email if preferable. I’ve recently learnt that Superprof makes people pay to even contact you in the first place; which feels a bit gross
@@lindersi all good - feel free to go direct to email if preferable. I’ve recently learnt that Superprof makes people pay to even contact you in the first place; which feels a bit gross.
How's "Followers of the Chosen" for a name? A touch extracted from your working title, but catchy. Too cheesy? Maybe 'Devotus' which is latin for "to vow" or "to dedicate" or go with the english term 'Devout'.
@@redantretro8582 I really like Devotus! I am very unlikely to actually make this game though because of the networking elements
@@IndieGameClinic Does it need to be an online multiplayer game? [...just a thought] I guess playing only AI might limit the "fun" of going up against other profits and such. [Thinking out load via text...] What if you compressed the data or represented it in terms of a swarm or set size groups instead of each individual follower being an object or struct. Leave the rest as a render problem. These are game breaking problem I tend to run straight towards. [Haven't released a game yet! :D] We all have our hangups. Well the name is yours if you want it. I just like the idea so I'd support you. Great video, I'll probably make reference to it whenever discussing design docs from here on in. Very functional! ;)
your fiverr link does not work
@@MrGramno thanks! Will try to fix AsAP
@@IndieGameClinic can second this, fiverr says gig does not exist?
@@thewonderingvagabond might be a country thing; have checked a few times. Weird! Thanks for checking though.
@@IndieGameClinic yeah maybe th country, stil getting: The Gig you were looking for is no longer available.
Here are some other gigs you may find interesting. In Argentina currently, will be moving in a month or so :)
@@thewonderingvagabond I've found it; they want me to verify using my phone number - which was previously used for a different email when contracting at my last studio - fun times! Will hopefully get it fixed in the next week or so.
@25:35 that is not a historical movie!
@@bpansky it’s a documentary!
I really wish I could enter a fugue and write the equivalent of the Lord of the Ring (in number of words) in one night... Can I learn this power ?
I know there are many profound phases in this video. My favorite one is "Buy my banana"
Shows Fiverr... proceeds to not link it in any way, shape, or form. Attempts to search fiverr, nothing comes up....
I'm waiting for Fiverr to verify my new account, due to my mobile being used for a previous work-related account on there. Fiverr being silly, I'm afraid. Can't really justify taking down or re-editting a whole video when the link will be ok in a week or so.
updated now. thanks for the spot: www.fiverr.com/joebaxterwebb/review-your-game-design-document-gdd 📝
@@IndieGameClinic Ah ok , cool