> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://aien.me/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What Actually Goes Into a Game Design Document (Part 1: The Concept Document) - URL: https://aien.me/what-actually-goes-into-a-game-design-document-part-1-the-concept-document/ - Published: 2026-10-12T15:40:05.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-12T15:40:05.000Z - Description: What actually belongs in the first third of a design document, why a stranger should be able to understand your game from it alone, and the real pitch document that shows how much gets decided on paper long before production starts. - Author: Alien - Tags: Building your first game, #collection Back in the pre-production post in this series, I mentioned the game design document and then moved on fast, promising it deserved its own set of articles. This is the start of that side-series — starting with the part of the GDD almost every team writes first: the concept document. ## What a GDD Actually Is, and Why You Need One A game design document is the reference every other decision gets checked against. Without one, you're stuck running the same conversation over and over — explaining the core idea to each new hire individually, re-litigating decisions that were supposedly already made, discovering three weeks into production that two departments built for two different versions of the same feature. A GDD exists so that the answer to "wait, how many playable characters are there, and what can each of them do?" is a page number, not a meeting. It doesn't need to be one single, monolithic file. Most GDDs end up covering three distinct areas, whether or not they're literally split into three documents: a concept section, a design section, and a technical section. There's no fixed standard for how you divide that up — some teams keep everything in one long document, others genuinely maintain three separate ones. What matters is that all three areas actually get written down somewhere, not which folder they live in. ## The Concept Document: Passing the Stranger Test The concept section is the part that has to work as a pitch. A good test: if you stopped a stranger on the street and handed them just this section, they should walk away knowing roughly what your game is and what it feels like to play, without needing anything else explained. This is also the part investors and publishers usually read first, and often the only part they read closely before deciding whether the rest is worth their time. At minimum, it usually covers genre, setting, mood or atmosphere, art style, a summary of the story (or a note that there isn't one), target platform, and intended audience. Think of it as writing a review of a game that doesn't exist yet — same level of detail you'd expect from a real review covering interface, mechanics, and tone, just without a verdict at the end, because the verdict is still being decided by whether this document convinces anyone. If you want to see what a real one looks like once a team commits to writing it in real depth, Tim Schafer released the original pitch document for Grim Fandango years after the game shipped, to mark its tenth anniversary. It's still floating around online. It's genuinely worth reading — not because Grim Fandango's puzzles are relevant to whatever you're building, but because it shows how much of what eventually shipped was already decided on paper years earlier, alongside plenty of content that got cut entirely along the way. That gap between the pitch and the finished game is normal and worth expecting in your own document too. ## Don't Write It Alone The most common mistake with this section, especially on small teams, is one or two people writing it in isolation and then handing it to everyone else as a finished decision. If you're a team of four or five people who are all supposed to care about this game, everyone needs some hand in shaping the concept, or you'll spend the rest of production dealing with people who never really bought into the idea they're being asked to build. It also isn't purely a writing exercise. Concept art, mood boards, and reference screenshots from comparable games all belong here alongside the text — if your gameplay borrows from two existing games, put screenshots of both next to your description of what you're borrowing and why. It communicates faster than a paragraph trying to describe the same thing in words. Some studios add a formal sign-off page where department leads literally sign the document once they agree to it; smaller teams usually skip the ceremony, but the underlying idea — everyone actually agreeing before production starts — matters regardless of team size. ## The Marketing Section Nobody Expects The part of the concept document people most often forget: marketing doesn't show up only after the game is finished, it belongs on the page from day one. More and more development teams now have someone whose job is specifically marketing and sales, and that person needs the concept document early to start planning campaigns, trailers, and outreach around whatever makes your game distinct. Concretely, this usually means listing anything genuinely marketable about the game up front — a striking visual hook, a mechanic nobody's seen before, a setting that stands out in your genre — right alongside the genre and story summary. If nobody on your team has a marketing background, this is worth an outside conversation early rather than skipping it; you can absorb their input into the document yourself and handle the actual campaign work later, on your own schedule. If you want a fast, practical way to see what this kind of write-up usually covers, read a handful of professional reviews for games similar to yours and notice exactly which categories they break the game down into — interface, economy, mechanics, and so on. That's a reasonable proxy for what belongs in this section. A few things worth remembering as you write your own: - Write the concept section so a total stranger understands the game from it alone - Get the whole team involved, not just whoever happens to be best at writing - Use images and references, not just paragraphs, wherever they communicate faster - Flag what's actually marketable about the game here, early, even before you have a marketing plan - Expect gaps between what's on paper now and what eventually ships — that's normal, not a failure of the document Next time, this side-series moves into the design document itself: the actual mechanics, systems, and rules that turn this concept into something playable.