Googling game design documents will result in a literal flood of templates, formatting rules, and content guidelines that can leave a new programmer ready to give it all up. The truth is, design documents are tailored to the team or company that creates them, making them much easier to draft than the internet would have you think.
In general, there are three types of design documentation, as follows:
- Game Design Document (GDD): The GDD houses everything from how the game is played to its atmosphere, story, and the experience it's trying to create. Depending on the game, this document can be a few pages long or several hundred.
- Technical Design Document: This document focuses on all the technical aspects of the game, from the hardware it will run on to how the classes and program architecture need to be built out. Like a GDD, the length will vary based on the project.
- One-Page: Usually used for marketing or promotional situations, a one-page is...