The concept doc for Tynies was only around 7 pages long, the GDD will have to be around 45 - 55 pages, this means every single aspect mentioned will have to be expanded upon and explained, some new mechanics may even have to be implemented to beef out the game a little and make it even more fun to play.
Rather than creating one single large GDD, the documents will be split into three different and separate docs; Game Mechanics, Interactive Design and because Tynies doesn't really have any level design I will instead be creating a Gameplay Design doc, where I'll structure it as if a player is giving a walk-through of the game form start to finish.
Game Mechanics Document
Ok so to begin I started off with creating the Game Mechanics Document, this is where every single mechanics in the game will be described and detailed in full.
The mechanics document will probably be the largest of the three documents so I am prepared to spend more time on this than spreading out my time evenly for all three docs.
I started off by first going through my concept document and creating headers for all of the key mechanics, followed by sub header for additional information on the subject. Once that was done I started filling in some of the information, which will often lead me to extra ideas or thing I hadn't previously mentioned. The new ideas was also given headers for later.
After a few days of bulking out the structure and headers I was pretty confident to continue filling in the rest of this information, this took a while. I had filled up quite the amount of pages by simply talking about the mechanics, next it was time I started adding some images. I first of all added in the images I'd previously done for the concept document, this gave visual information for the key areas, but not enough, so I opened up photoshop and started creating an image for most mechanics I was talking about, as I typed it.
After I had finished with the majority of the document I was advised to add animation state tables to my document, detailed when the animation is played, what it reverts to as well as a description of the animation. This didn't take up too much time however I was starting to think it's about time I moved onto the other documents.
Now all of the information, structure, images and animation tables are complete, even pictures of all the Tynie breeds have been done. the document totalled at 29 pages long. giving me the rest of the page count to split between the other docs.
Below is the finished game mechanics document:
Password is: xb3002
Tynies - Mechanics Document
Interactive Design Document
The next document I decided to move onto was the interactive design as this is where I could explain HOW the player actually uses mechanics and interactive with Tynies.Like the mechanics doc, I first went through and added in headers and sub header for all of the things I was going to talk about, fortunatly there wasn't as many as mechanics so I was confident I'd be in the limits of the page count.
The first challenge I encountered was now I needed to truly think about the controls of the game, how the player was going to play and interact with Tynies easily and effortlessly. The best way I could think of hitting this challenge head on was to grab my own PlayStation Vita and pretend I was playing Tynies myself, I imagined quite a few scenarios of me running through various aspects of my imaginary Tynies game. Eventually I found myself wanting to use the touch pads more than the buttons to physically interact rather than feel more like a proxy. The player can use both buttons and touch pad to navigate the menus, I made sure everything could be done with both,
Now that I finished the controls I moved onto the menu flow charts, detailing how the player would navigate them and also how they can reach the other menus and also go back to the main menu. It took a little while to grasp how to structure the chart, but once I got stuck in it all just flowed together. (Pun intended)
I had to create an image for all of the menu screens that the player will see, this helped me also realise how the player could navigate them and also if I forgot to add anything to the flow chart, which I fortunately didn't.
After filling in all of the information on how the player interacts with the game and after adding in all the images, the document was 18 pages long.
Below is the finished interactive design document:
Password is: xb3002
Tynies - Interactive Design Document
Gameplay Design Document
Ok so now I only have one more document to do and it shouldn't take too long to finish, my gameplay design document is basically an alternative for a level design doc, with Tynies not having any levels it's clear why I went for gameplay.Now with my gameplay doc I approached it as if I was playing the game and giving a walk-through, what steps would I go through, and how would I do them. So that's what I did. I began the structure again with just the headers, followed by sub headers of the things the player could do in that section. Soon I had pretty much a walk-through tha detailed many aspects of Tynies from the player's point of view, from navigating the starting menus and finding their tynies, to playing and having them grow.
There was no need to create any new images for this document (with the exception of the cover image which featured a different Tynie) as all of the points raised already had an image that could be recycled. This document was completed rather quickly as it was only short and required me simple giving information as if the player was playing, instead of my giving detailed information of every key aspect of each mechanic.
The finished document had only 10 pages but this is all that was needed.
Below is the finished gameplay design document:
Password is: xb3002
Tynies - Gameplay Design Document
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