jdarling's Game Design Document

[IlovePascal]

hey jdarling,
thanks a lot for sharing your GDD with us. There is no way I would've known how to make one of these! (I started to read your 'tutorial' but it's hhuuuuge!).

I have just one question:

What is the User Case? Im not quite sure what Im supposed to write in that part.

And to the judges of the competition: do we absolutely need that kind of information (User Case, Game Run Overview, flow diagrams) to complete the stage goal???

Cheers ;)

[cairnswm]

I'd like to add my thanks :)

I didn't agree with a whole lot of it so shuffled a lot of things around, but basically my design doc was based on jdarlings doc. Thanks :)

[jdarling]

What is the User Case? Im not quite sure what Im supposed to write in that part.
Long story short, a use case is a (typically) textual description of a process that shows the standard and alternate paths to completion.

Clearer Statement:
A Use Case is a description of the typical and alternate paths for a given part of a project. Some times presented in a table (as I did), others in a prose statement, and even other times in a graphical format.

Hope that helps, if not, do some googling as its a common term in Systems Analytics and Business Analytics.


And to the judges of the competition: do we absolutely need that kind of information (User Case, Game Run Overview, flow diagrams) to complete the stage goal???
I know this one too, Nope :)
You need something high level for the judges to see that you actually thought about your entry. Look at some of the other Design Docs posted here on PGD (actually my thread in Your Projects about Tracking is a good thread to start at).

Its just what I use and I thought I'd be nice and post it for anyone else to use if they so wished.

Thanks guys for the TY's, I know the doc is a bit overwhelming, its based off of a corporate version :)

[jasonf]

I'd like to add my thanks too, I work on software design all day so I'd have been able to come up with my own document no problem, but yours was so good, I used it instead. Saved me a whole lot of time and it let me concentrate on the game idea instead of the document formatting. Nice work.

I didn't fill in any use cases though, I thought I'd describe my gameplay in the text.

IlovePascal, here's a link to Wikipedia's definition of UML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language

[AthenaOfDelphi]

And to the judges of the competition: do we absolutely need that kind of information (User Case, Game Run Overview, flow diagrams) to complete the stage goal???

Hi ILovePascal,

jdarling is absolutely right... we don't need to see that level of detail, but part of the competition is trying to encourage good development practices... hence the stage goals. Use cases, flow diagrams, requirements etc. are all part of good design because they help you get your design straight in your mind before you start coding.

I screwed up in last years competition because I didn't think far enough ahead and I didn't produce a decent design document, all I could think about was getting my player character running round the screen... it wasn't until stage 4 or 5 that I realised I'd completely messed up because I couldn't track objects that were moving. Net result... I had to completely scrap the code base for the play engine and start from scratch. Not a very good situation to be in with the final deadline looming.

Good design aside... the more details you put in your design document, the more there is to wet our appetites and I have to say after reading some of the documents that have been submitted so far.... GIMME GIMME GIMME. I can't wait to play these games :-D

Good luck guys :-)

[IlovePascal]

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: