Organizing your game design thoughts with a GDD

Having decided to go ahead with my game idea, I came to a conclusion very early in the development cycle that I will need to get all the crazy thoughts running around in my head down somewhere, be it the computer or a notepad. Not wanting to use pen and paper to record all my thoughts and progress which can essentially risk even further disarray, I decided to go the computer route to ease the process. As most of my readers know, Game development is a chaotic process at best and even more so when creating one solo, so the importance of organizing your ideas and time becomes paramount if you ever wish your title see the light of day.

I began my search looking for software and/or solutions that would help ease the process and keep me on track while having the sustainability and usability to keep me interested in updating it, cause let’s face it, it’s a very daunting and even laborious task to maintain and manage a cumbersome system especially on your own while your mind is preoccupied with a million other thoughts. I’ve decided to share my findings with you in hopes that it will be of some help with your search in finding a solution that works for you as well.

Video Game Design Pro

I came across this software after some extensive searching with Google, as it appears it takes a unique path with regards to game development applications. After installing it and giving it a test run, I found it to be a very well thought out piece of software covering practically all bases in relation to game development. Even though it’s quite impressive, I knew it wouldn’t have kept me on track as I’ve tried many times utilizing software such as this to create business plans, organize my projects etc to no avail, without the proper discipline or someone dedicated to upkeep it, I knew it wouldn’t work for a lone developer such as myself. Aside from that I didn’t want to install yet another piece of software on my home office system, especially since I’m very mobile these days, and accessing something like this when those important creative ideas spring to mind would further discourage me from using it. Even though it’s a reasonably priced and viable solution, I simply don’t have the resources to maintain it at this point, but it will be useful to most devs simply based on the fact that there’s a wealth of instructions and examples to guide you through your design document.

Books, Books, Books

Wow, I didn’t know but man are they ever an immense amount of books on the subject. Just by typing in any relative text in Amazon’s search engine would result in an incredible amount of resources to choose from. Again an issue for me, the thought of running out to purchase a hefty size book or books on the subject on video game project management definitely wasn’t appealing to me since I would have to spend too much time reading and implementing varied systems to find out which would be the best fit for me and not focusing on what’s important, the game. Basically it’s information overload which I don’t currently need to preoccupy my mind as there’s too many things doing that already! All a sole developer essentially needs is a way to log their thoughts in an easy and accessible manner and to set milestones to stay on track. Having an elaborate system to maintain only meant nothing would get done and I would most likely spend my time keeping the system in check and again not focusing on what’s important.

Forums and online Group Ware

I then began to consider using forum software with image attachment features in hopes to better get a handle on the GDD. At first using PHPBB3 seemed like a viable solution and it still is, based on the fact that many Indie Devs and even some studios actually find them useful and quite easy to use and get going, and since most of us are used to using forums in our daily routines, it wouldn’t be a stretch by any means to adjust to using it. Which brings a problem, it felt to common place for me, and in my mind I just knew forums and groupware applications are based solely on collaboration between many individuals, and because of the nature of forum applications you can easily deviate from the topic at hand and risk diluting the message. I realize for me it just won’t work right now. I needed something simple, streamlined and easy to update without the hassles.

Wikis

The answer turned out to be a wiki, a rather simple solution anyone can get into. So I took a day out to explore the many types of wiki’s out there and came across a few. Mediawiki and Dokuwiki were impressive but not what I needed, they’re both very robust, but once again it took way too much setup time with an additional learning curve I didn’t want to endure at this time. It’s one of those systems that are great when they get going and all you have to do is refer to them when needed.

Losing hope I eventually came across tiddlywiki, a self contained wiki based off one mind numbing complex html file that I could drop on my thumb drive and take it anywhere with me much like a digital notebook, precisely what I was looking for. With its ease of use and practical tagging features, I’m now able to access pertinent sections of my GDD with one or two clicks which is perfect! It allows me to stay focus on the creation of the game, while providing a way to handle version control amongst many other facets a dev would need. Yes it would need initial setup time, but the way the pages or ‘tiddlers’ as they’re referred to, are easily accessible with a double click. With a centralized landing page that I quickly created, it allows all the content to branch off to pertinent information without having to wait for load times which is another bonus, what more could I ask for? Well there is that thing called time.

If you’re interested in seeing my version of tiddywiki in action, head over to this page. At this point I’m still undecided if I’ll publicly update it beyond what’s here, but I’ll think about that later. Also if you find that this setup is fitting for you, read up on Tiddlywiki with the links provided below and download this zip file containing all files used here. You can use it as a template for your game if you wish.

So there you have it, some solutions that you can ponder over. I hope this has been of some help to you and stay tuned for more progress.

Tito A. Belgrave

Related Links:
Tiddlywiki
Dokuwiki
Mediawiki
Wikis in plain english
Video Game Design Pro
PHPBB3