Game Concept Document

As a first step towards developing a prototype of the game, I’ve started to work on the Game Concept Document. I’m following this great guide from the Gamasutra site: The Anatomy of a Design Document, Part 1: Documentation Guidelines for the Game Concept and Proposal.

A Game Concept is primarily a sales tool, but it’s also very useful to write one for yourself as a way to structure your game idea. I want to use this document to bring interest around the creation process of the game, and letting people who support the project via Patreon to participate.

This document is a first approximation of the core idea of your game. It’s a general overview of the game, so anyone who reads can understand what the game is like. As the game design and development phases advance, the content of this document will be left obsolete. It has not to be a large document. It has to be read in less than 10 minutes, so the ideal size of the document is two pages, maximum 5 pages.

You can find some template examples of the Game Concept Document if you google it. I recommend this template: The High Concept Document by Ernest W. Adams.

The most important sections for a Game Concept Document are:

• Introduction. Two to five lines describing the game idea.
• Description. Describe the game as you were the player.
• Key features. A bullet point list of items that shows how the player experience could be.
• Genre, Platform, …

I created some time ago a Game Concept for another game idea, a Space Business Tycoon. It’s published at this blog, so you can see an example of a Game Concept: Space Business Tycoon Game Concept. I also used the Game Concept Document contents to build a landing page to promote the game: Landing for Space Business Tycoon [Github source code].