Today we looked more into Game Design Documents. Though these were done on word documents, the information we get and break down within them will be applicable to our GDDs on our websites. In the end we were given two different GDDs to break down and analyse. These were of 'Bioshock' and 'Damnation'. 

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These are the questions we were asked:

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1. What are the essential experiences of these games?

2. What are some features you think were missing?

3. Which aspects of the design document do you think were done well?

4. Do you think the design intentions were realistic?

5. Do you think there is enough information presented here?

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After reading through them and taking brief looks through the documents, these are the notes I took:

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1. Damnation- The essential experience is to make a unique FPS game that has strategic navigation & will set it apart from other FPS games.
   Bioshock- The essential experience is to let the players have as much freedom as they think they can have.
    

2. Damnation- They were lacking in explanation in some areas -ie: ‘fluid animation’. The layout also seems a little disorderly especially with the scale of the vehicles.
   Bioshock- I feel like they are missing out on concept art. They have a lot of writing but nothing visual to back it up or give the people they are pitching to the ideas they need.
    

3.  Damnation- The multiplayer elements and story were explained in detail, so i really felt like that was done well. Their art was also nice as I felt like it added to the document.
   Bioshock- It had a good hook at the beginning that makes you want to read on to really find out what the game is about. It also had slight hints at humour (look at the overview), so it really feels like a good pitch on paper.
    

4. Damnation- Compared to the other, I felt like the in-depth-ness to the analysis wasn’t the best. They explained the story in detail, but with other areas like the overall gameplay and what the player will be doing? I felt like it was lacking.
   Bioshock- I felt like they explained a lot in detail, making their ideas seem a lot more realistic. It almost felt like there was a breakdown of a lot of the elements that really made you think that it could be done in a game (even something as simple as scaring people).
    

5. Overall, I felt like there was more information that was worthy in Bioshock, but more visually pleasing elements in Damnation. If you combined the two documents together, I feel like you would really have a good GDD document that would make for a good pitch.

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Knowing this now- I feel like I will be making some adjustments to my GDD section of my website. I might try and break it down into different parts- the GDD possibly being a section for the final pitch and everything else I have worked on thus far can go into a section like:  'Games Development Ideas' or something along those lines.

 

I will make an update if I plan to actually do this.

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Written and published on site on 30th October 2020.

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