Producing Games

C H A P T E R

THIRTY TWO

The Game Design Doc

A writer has his outline, an architect has his blueprint, a scientist has his thesis, and a video game production team has its game design document (the GDD). As we’ve previously mentioned, the GDD is your game on paper, but let’s examine what that really means, and to do so we need to dissect the elements of a game. The essence of a typical Next-Gen console game consists of the following.

• Narrative: The story, explanation of what is going on.
• Characters: The playable characters, enemies, companions, NPCs (non-playable characters)
• Locations: Streets, buildings, the sky, forests, bodies of water, ships
• Movements: Walking, running, climbing, strafing
• Combat: Punching, kicking, grappling, struggling ...