game-design-review

AlterLab GameForge -- Design Document Review Workflow

A game design document is a living contract between your ambitions and your execution capacity. A bad GDD is not poorly formatted -- it is one that lets the team build confidently in the wrong direction for weeks before anyone notices. Hollow Knight's design doc worked because Team Cherry kept it tight, falsifiable, and obsessively focused on three pillars. Most GDDs fail because they describe a game without constraining it -- anything goes, so nothing works.

This is not a checklist review. A checklist confirms sections exist. This review confirms sections are good -- internally consistent, psychologically grounded, scope-honest, and specific enough to guide implementation decisions. Disco Elysium's systems-narrative integration did not happen by accident -- it happened because the design document specified exactly how every skill check connected to every dialogue branch. That level of specificity is what this review demands.

Purpose & Triggers

Use this workflow when:

• A designer says "review my GDD" or "give feedback on my design document"
• Before starting implementation, to catch problems while they are cheap to fix
• After significant design changes, to re-validate internal consistency
• When a playtest reveals problems and you suspect the root cause is in the design
• When team members disagree about what the game is supposed to be

Problems this solves:

• Mechanics that do not serve any design pillar (orphan features)
• Target aesthetics that contradict the actual mechanics (MDA misalignment)
• Scope estimates that ignore reality (optimism masquerading as planning)
• Design documents that describe a game but do not constrain it (anything goes = nothing works)
• Systems that interact in unintended ways (emergent conflict)
• Missing sections that will cause confusion during implementation

Critical Rules

1. Read the whole document before commenting. Context matters. A mechanic that seems orphaned in Section 3 might be justified by the progression system in Section 7. Read everything first, then analyze.