I''m going to have to agree with most of you and say that the design document is very imortaint. It needs to be long enough to fully explain every aspect of the game. Dont worry about the exact length. What you should worry about is putting every little detail you think of in the document in no particular order. This is more like brainstorming and does not belong in the design doc as it muddles the final creative vision. Put those little brainstorming ideas in a notebook somewhere until you are absolutly sure you want them in the game. Remember, any idea you come up with is usally a great one until you show somone else. If someone else dosn''t like it maybe they don''t understand your vision. If 100 people say it''s bad maybe it doesn''t belong in the game. Good luck with your design document.

Creativity -- Concept -- Code

Your game is nothing if you don't have all three.

Hi again!

I just wanted to say, that the design document is very important, yes, and you should plan every little detail, but there should always be a little space for changes while coding. That doesn''t mean to totally convert the game, but you should always have a little bit fun on coding

I wish you good luck with your game!

Yours,
Indeterminatus.


Indeterminatus

quote: Ya, I just finished my 50 page design doc for my upcoming Pong game. Come on guys. - Julio

- Pong''s attraction was partly that the idea of videogames was new, but also the fact that it had a strong basic concept. -Something that not many videogames can manage these days, especially when you compare the variety of videogames worldwide to the variety of board games worldwide. - I personally like Half-Life quite a bit, but when stuff like "Rollercoaster Tycoon" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" comes along and blows Quake/Unreal/Half-Life away in sales, I kinda wonder not about who is buying the FPS games, but about all the people who aren''t. From a casual non-scientific comparison of boardgames/tablegames vs. videogames, I have noticed the following points:
- Board and table games for children tend to have a definite ending that one player reaches first, but adult games tend to continue until all but one player has lost & dropped out.
- Most board/table games for children tend to have concrete concepts: a predefined gameplay along a predefined path that is presented using familiar ideas. Most board/table games for adults tend to be more abstract, not directly representing anything, such as Poker or checkers. The level of abstraction tends to increase with the age of the players. (Many videogames strive to be realistic when realism clearly isn''t important to adult players)
- Chess seems to be the upper limit of how complex a game can be, and still be widely popular. Many videogames *seem* to add more factors (such as different weapons needed for different enemies) in a misspent effort to increase the challenge of the game, when clearly, the challenge of checkers is not how to move the pieces, but which piece to move and where to move it.
Just some observations. - Lubb