Video Game Design/Developers

Does anyone have their students make GDDs? Would you be willing to share what it looks like? I have my seniors make a GDD as they work on their Capstone game project in teams. I don't really know when to say this is enough and detailed enough, or this still needs more work. I have 5 groups per class and the groups are larger this year. My thinking has been, if I make good groups, and have fewer, I can actually help more of the groups. In the past I have had smaller groups and a larger number of groups, and then trying to help each group when they get stuck is a nightmare. Some groups stay stuck for awhile and make little progress, but this year is going better.

I'd be curious to see what you use as a GDD. I've attached the one I'm using now, oops, that's my project document, here is my GDD template, although we aren't going to use Figjam for planning, we'll use Trello because we've used that before, but I also offered CoDecks as an option because I came across it and it looks great, like Trello, but more like a card game of Trello cards.

Just for fun, and also bc I don't think any student names are used, I've attached a GDD one team of seniors are making so you can see what stage we are in. Many have already started building their games, but some still need to tighten up their GDD. This group has updated their doc based on my feedback, but now just needs to clean it all up and remove the excess. I think. I actually want the doc to be useful, especially when a group member says, should we add . . ., I want their instinct to be to go back to the doc and see how it could fit in, and if it doesn't, don't implement the idea, but alas . . .

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Owen Peery k12teacher
SAN FRANCISCO CA
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We use a very parred down version of a GDD in my intro course, it usually lives on a google form that is part of them signing up for their groups.

Here is one from earlier this semester.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZpKyZi7BR6u1jx8-HssIUmRu85FehFBKmSHIwzjw-0D5Lpg/viewform?usp=sf_link

In my capstone I give them a lot of leeway into the type of GDD they can submit to me, we usually spend a few days explicitly working on it earlier in the semester. I found this one and all of my groups are using it. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n1Lh5nAI8l94Gi_tRnTcg8wnj7DNzArk7h3puxxzT1M/edit?usp=drive_link

Thanks, I can view the template, but not the example, the first link.

It all kicks out to a Spreadsheet for me.

I have mine do their GDD in the first year. It's assigned in chunks over the year (starting with brainstorming and working forward from there), and then they bring it all together at the end. They build them in the second year, so we don't work on timelines or teams or anything on the original document (we learn and implement scrum in the second year).

It's been cobbled together from a few sources over the years. 

Instructions

Template

Thank for the examples. I think maybe next year I'll have my seniors, who take Game Design 2 and do their Capstone projects in the spring, I'll have them start a game design document individually at the beginning of the year. It will be something they work on all Fall. We'll have some kind of Pitchfest where each student presents their idea to the class one day, no more than 2 minutes, then all students vote on the top 2 projects they would want to work on, then I form teams from that.

It's a challenge making teams for me. If I let them choose entirely, I get all the higher achievers together bc they don't want to do the work for the less engaged students. OR I get just friends together and the work is terrible or very unfinished. The method above will let me make everyone accountable for a GDD, and have to sell it, and then you are voting on which project you want to work on, not which people you want to work with.

I try to use scrum with students but it's a very modified version. My plan for this year was to do a weekly standup with each group in my classes, but we are 2 weeks in and we haven't gotten to one yet. There's a lot to do at the start so once we get past this initial lift, I'll implement them, but that doesn't leave much time left in the year.

My students are presenting their game projects on May 21st, at the Walt Disney Family Museum, in the little theater. School ends for us on June 3rd.

I have my 2nd and 3rd year students write design docs. For my 2nd years, in the past I have used a template from Ernest Adam's book Fundamentals of Game Design. My 3rd years competed in SkillsUSA this year and they were provided a very long template and were expected to condense it to 1-page (eliminates all the flowery language they like to use to pad their writing).

Here is an example of a 2nd year doc from a few years ago, and a 3rd year doc from this year.

A few years ago I found this template/example (on LinkedIn I believe). I liked that it has visuals, not just writing.

A couple things I did different this year are:

• I used ChatGPT to generate specific (mobile, VR) GDD outlines, and thought the results were pretty good (I cut/added a few items to limit scope).
• Since I have been using Agile practices for development, I started using Notion.so, because it supports both document writing (very customizable, with many templates) and project/sprint/task boards and management.

If there is an area I want kids to be very specific it is the mechanics section. The kids tend to be vague at first and I also struggle with teaching it.

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David Malpica k12teacher
Cupertino CA
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