Game Design Documents Topic

1237

01/05/2020 05:54 PM

Does anyone know of any games that have released their game design documents for the general public to read and study?

I ask because I recently saw some tweets from Dragon Quest designer Yuji Horii, where he shared some of his pages from his GDD and I thought it was really interesting. I would be interested in seeing if any games I really like or loved had these public so I could read them.

I’m sure it’s not a common thing at all, but just curious. Even if it was from a small indie title here, or an older dragon quest or final fantasy title.

Sidewinder

2880

01/05/2020 06:31 PM

Fallout: Van Buren (the original version of Fallout 3, developed by Black Isle) had it's design documents leaked. They're interesting to read, though I'm kind of glad the game got cancelled. New Vegas reused some of the ideas and concepts, but everything fit together a lot better.

Wing Commander also had a ton of stuff released. Nothing too interesting, but it's sad to see just how ambitious early versions of Prophecy were, and a few glimpses of what could have been Privateer 3.

Darken

3952

01/05/2020 07:27 PM

The doom bible is interesting, (context here: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Bible and even more context). Mainly because the developers completely ignored it. It was also going to be open world and have a big story. In the end it just wasn't Tom Hall's game, but also design docs aren't always good for most projects.

DungeonDevDude

1237

01/05/2020 07:29 PM

author=Darken
The doom bible is interesting, (context here: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_Bible and even more context). Mainly because the developers completely ignored it. It was also going to be open world and have a big story. In the end it just wasn't Tom Hall's game, but also design docs aren't always good for most projects.

Yeah, I definitely agree with your last point. They aren’t really good for all projects or devs.

I just find them interesting.

Thank you for sharing!

GAME DESIGN DOCUMENTS

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