Game Design Docs as Creative Writing

Fun With Armchair Game Design

Making games is a difficult process, especially if done solo as a hobbyist. You need to develop multiple skillsets that could each be their own high paying job, from programming to modeling to music. Still if you’re like me that doesn’t stop you from dreaming up game ideas while feeling miles away from actually being able to make them. Which is why I enjoy writing game design docs.

A game design doc is just what it sounds like, a document about the design of a game that serves as a reference when actually making it. The core premise, mechanics, controls, target audience, and so on. From what I understand some developers have shifted to other formats, but the point is that there’s a resource with the key points of what actually makes up and will go into the game.

Since this isn’t a format most people interact with, some examples are likely in order. Fortunately the design docs for some influential video games are publicly available, such as the original Diablo and Doom, where you can also see how the final products came to diverge from the documents, like Diablo being planned to have many miniature expansions sold in the same section as trading cards.

[A page from the Diablo design doc. I don’t play Diablo, did they ever get around to that living fungus world?]

From the perspective of someone who can’t make every idea that comes to mind, writing game design docs are appealing as a way to manifest the idea in at least some form, that doesn’t require it becoming a different medium. I can’t recall who did it, but I recall hearing of an author who instead of writing a book wrote a review for it instead, this is a little similar to that.

It’s an indirect form of creation, which is still creation. A game design doc written for fun could become the basis for an actual game, but just having that design doc can be enough to have the feeling of making something when you don’t have the time or resources to develop a full game. Plus leaving it as a fantasy not intended to be fully made means you can skip the marketing talk and also be self indulgent in the scope.

[A page from the Doom design doc.]

In my case fighting games are not a genre advised for novice game developers, but there’s so much conversation around their design that it’s hard for me to not dream up a variety of different ideas. Writing a game design doc for one of those, a platform fighter in my fantasy setting, led to writing Battles Beneath the Stars and its own unconventional format. Though ironically needing to stay on top of a serial tends to make it hard to pursue other interests like actually learning game development.

But the ideas are out there now, whether I can one day make them into a real fighting game or not, it exists in some form. Doing what I can is better than mourning what I can’t do.

Optional Response Prompt: Have you ever dreamt of creating something in a medium that feels inaccessible to you? Or found a way to get around some of your creative limits.