Chapter 4: Design Documents

Overview

In Chapter 1, “Game Programming Overview,” we looked at the positions that make up a game team and their respective responsibilities. We’ll do something similar in this chapter, but this time our attention will be focused on the creation process. Instead of jumping right into the technical aspects of the game such as creating the levels or writing some code, it’s important to begin with the creation of a design document.

This chapter will serve as a complete overview of the design document. If you’d like to follow along with an actual design document, Appendix A, “About the CD-ROM,” contains the complete version for the game project that we are going to be working on in this book. Additionally, you can use this as a basic template for the creation of your own design documents.

On the CD

The CD-ROM that is included with the book also has the design document/template in Word format for you to use. It is located in the Project directory.