The Japanese Nintendo website has released the Manual and two Japanese Game design Documents about the Starfox 2 game. One Game Design Document is about the Design, the other one focuses on the Arwing. These document are made available because of the pending release of the SNES mini console
List of Game Design Documents (Fallout, Tron, Silent Hill and more)
Mikael Segedi, a game designer and project manager has linked some intriguing game design documents from his website. The ones from Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2, Tron and Silent Hill were new for me, but the other ones are also interesting to read. This is his complete list:
- Doom
- Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2
- Grand Theft Auto
- Grim Fandango
- Silent Hill
- Torment
- Tron
- Diablo
Game design template from Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor, the game creator most famous for developing Total Annihilation and Dungeon Siege, has released a Game design template.
Especially his closing remarks are open minded and interesting: “Change this template any way you want and if you feel you have improved on it, send it back to me and I can pass it out as an alternative to anyone that asks me in the future.”
Narbacular Drop (Portal predecessor) documents
The design documents for Narbacular Drop, created by Nuclear Monkey Software, can still be found on the website of DigiPen Institute of Technology.
The original developers showed the Narbacular Drop game to Valve, which offered to let them develop it’s successor Portal at Valve. On this website several different kind of documents about the game can be found (Docs section) as well as the finished game (Downloads section).
Double Fine Productions Game Design Documents from Lee Petty
Game developer Lee Petty from Double Fine Productions has placed some interesting game design documents on his Scribd page:
- HeadLander Casting Document
- Brutal Legend Material Standards
- Stacking GDD
- Stacking: The Triple Decker Tank Engine Level Design
- Stacking: Stacking Zeppelin Level Design
Chris Sawyer’s Transport Tycoon Pitch and snippets of source code
The pitch document from Chris Sawyer for the “The Transport Game”, which later became Transport Tycoon, can be found on the official website. Also a snippet of the source code can be viewed there.
Game design documents and pitches from designer Thomas Grové (Street Fighter IV: Flashback and more)
The designer Thomas Grové shares many really interesting game design documents, pitches and even visual prototypes on his personal website (scroll down to “Concept Documents” section). Files for the following games can be found there:
- Street Fighter IV: Flashback
- Tony Jaa’s Fighting Force
- Valkyrior
- Street Fighter: Power Battles
- Kung Fu Dream
- And some interesting design Tests
Pid game design document from Might and Delight
The Game Design Document about Pid – Peculiar Destination from Might and Delight tells about the design for the game. It’s a stealth platforming adventure game with puzzles, rendered in a lovely art style.
Game design documents from designer Richard Hill-Whittall
On his personal website the game development entrepreneur Richard Hill-Whittall uploaded many game design documents. Some of the games are released some of them were not. He shared the documents for the following games:
- Build’n Race
- Build’n Race Extreme (renamed to VTrax)
- Combat Tanks
- City Defender
- Monsters
- Pool Hall Pro
- Vertigo
Planescape Torment Vision Statement
In a lengthy two part interview lead designer Chris Avellone and “second designer” Chris McComb talk about developing the game Planescape: Torment at Black Isle Studios. The interview can be found at RPGWatch
At the end of the second page Chris Avellone shares the original Vision Statement for this game. This document was used to Pitch the game to their management. With quotes like “don’t do what’s been done” and “re-examine your first instinct” it’s an interesting read.