The first draft of the Game Design Document (GDD) for my game is about 80% done, and with it, I’m now able discuss it coherently and start getting feedback. On Tuesday, I attended my first ROC Game Dev open project night and chatted with a number of other developers, played what folks were working on, and discussed my project. I heard a cautionary tale of patent squatting on procedurally generated enemy systems; what I was planning didn’t intersect, but it was a good warning.

The holidays have come and passed, and I’ve been working on a Game Design Document (GDD) for my first commercial game. In practice, it’s a comprehensive, living, descriptive software design document that will serve as the implementation guide. Right now, it’s about 4500 words, and it’ll grow a bit more, but I’m also going to do an editing pass; it should be accessible and useful. It’s over half done.

There are a lot of resources available for GDDs, such as Gamescrye’s archive, Jason Bakker’s GDD Template, and Indie Game Academy’s Template.

I had been planning one game with a long production timeline, but following my last meeting with my SCORE mentors, I think I’m going to start with a smaller game set in the same overall universe as what I’m envisioning where I can prototype mechanics and style, build an audience and potentially some income. I’ll support it, then I’ll need to decide if I’m going to keep adding on to it (free or DLC), or pivot to the more ambitious plan.