Awesome Game design list

A list of publicly available Game design documents that I have found interesting. (Ok... the list is slowly evolving. The main focus will still be game design materials, but will also include additional cool tools at the end)

I do not own any of these documents. If there are any copyrighted materials, they belong to the original authors.

Enjoy.

Contents:

Game Design Document:

• Finished games GDDs
• Templates and examples
• Learning materials
• Postmortems
• GDD Creation Tools

Design tools

• List

Development:

• List

Finished games GDDs:

• Monaco
• Rockstar games GTA
• Condor's Diablo 1
• Original Deus Ex
• Irrational Games (now Ghoststory Games) Bioshok
• Id Doom
• Laisure Suit Larry 5
• Frontier Pharmacist
• Shape up or Slip out
• The sky above, the sky below
• Love for sail!
• Leisure Suit Larry's Casino
• Prince of Persia 2
• Burnt out cop
• Grim Fandango

Templates and examples:

• Generic example 1
• Generic example 2
• Generic example 3

Learning materials:

• The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses

Postmortems:

(The following list is taken directly from www.pixelprospector.com Their website is currently only visible in the WaybackMachine archives, thats why I am posting it here)

Indie Postmortems

• Mika and the Witch’s Mountain (Chibig)

• Aaaaa! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (Dejobaan Games) [2010]

• Airscape: The Fall of Gravity (Daniel West) [2015]

• AI War (Arcen Games) [2013]

• Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (The Chinese Room) [2014]

• Anomaly Warzone Earth (11 Bit Studios) [2013]

• Another World / Out Of This World [VIDEO] (Eric Chahi) [2011]

• Armadillo Run (Peter Stock) [2006]

• BIT.TRIP BEAT (Gaijin Games) [2009]

• Cinders (Moacube) [2013]

• Cogmind (Grid Sage Games) [2015]

• Cogs (Lazy 8 Studios) [2009]

• Darwinia (introversion) [2009]

• Dead Nation (Housemarque) [2012]

• Droplitz (Blitz Games) [2010]

• Dust: An Elysian Tail (Humble Hearts) [2012]

• Eets (Klei Entertainment) [2006]

• Ethan: Meteor Hunter (Seaven Studio) [2013]

• Explosionade (Mommy’s Best Games) [2011]

• Fez [VIDEO] (Polytron) [2012]

• Forge (Dark Vale Games) [2012]

• Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games) [2012]

• Gemini Rue (Joshua Nuernberger) [2011]

• Gish (Chronic Logic) [2004]

• Goat Simulator (Armin Ibrisagic) [2015]

• Guacamelee! (DrinkBox Studios) [2013]

• Gun Godz (Vlambeer) [2012]

• Guns Of Icarus (Muse Games) [2011]

• Halfway (Robotality) [2015]

• Hell Yeah! (Arkedo) [2012]

• Heroki (Michael Balm) [2015]

• Hydro Thunder Hurricane (Vector Unit) [2010]

• Igneous (Going Down In Flames) [2010]

• INK (ZackBellGames) [2015]

• Intrusion 2 [VIDEO] (Aleksey Abramenko) [2013]

• Jetpack Joyride [VIDEO] (Halfbrick Studios) [2012]

• Lume (State of Play) [2012]

• Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess (Mediatonic) [2011]

• Natural Selection 2 (Unknown Worlds Entertainment) [2013]

• Never Alone (Upper One Games / E-Line Media) [2015]

• Next Penelope (Aurelien Regard) [2015]

• Nub’s Adventure (Maximilian Csuk) [2015]

• NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (Over the Top Games) [2010]

• Octodad (Octodad Team) [2011]

• Outland (Housemarque) [2012]

• Out There (Mi-Clos) [2015]

• Pixeljunk 4am (Q-Games) [2013]

• Ray Ardent: Science Ninja (Ninja Robot Dinosaur) [2011]

• Resogun Article

• Video (Housemarque) [2015]

• RoboBlitz (Naked Sky Entertainment) [2007]

• Recettear (Carpe Fulgur) [2011]

• Super Meat Boy (Team Meat) [2011]

• Schizoid (Torpex Games) [2008]

• SpaceChem (Zachtronics Industries) [2012]

• Speedrunner HD [VIDEO] (Casper Van Est) [2013]

• Splosion Man (Twisted Pixel) [2009]

• Super Win The Game (Minor Key Games) [2014]

• Swords & Soldiers (Ronimo Games) [2009]

• The Adventures Of Shuggy (Smudged Cat Games) [2011]

• The Binding of Isaac (Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl) [2012]

• The Blackwell Convergence (Wadjet Eye) [2009]

• The Graveyard (Tale of Tales) [2008]

• The Path (Tale of Tales) [2010]

• Trine (Frozenbyte) [2010]

• Trino (Trinoteam) [2009]

• Weapon of Choice (Mommy’s Best Games) [2009]

• Vessel (Overbyte) [2014]

• Wik & The Fable Of Souls (Reflexive) [2005]

• Zack Zero (Crocodile Entertainment) [2012]

• Zeno Clash (ACE Team) [2009]

• Humble Indie Bundle [VIDEO] [2011]

• Humble Indie Bundle (Indiegames Blog) [2011]

• Humble Indie Bundle (Joystiq) [2011]

Ludum Dare Game Jam Postmortems

• Infographic: Game Jam Postmortems – What Went Wrong/Right (McFunkyPants) [2011]
• Infographic: Game Jam Postmortem Survey (McFunkyPants) [2011]
• Ludum Dare Postmortems (Ludum Dare) [various years]

AAA Studios Postmortems

• Age of Empires II: Age of Kings (Ensemble Studio) [2000]

• A Boy and His Blob (WayForward) [2010]

• Black & White (Lionhead Studio) [2001]

• Baldur’s Gate II (BioWare) [2001]

• Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition (Overhaul Games) [2013]

• Bejeweled [VIDEO] (Jason Kapalka) [2011]

• Bionic Commando Rearmed (Capcom/GRIN) [2009]

• BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia) [2008]

• Brutal Legend (Double Fine) [2010]

• Crackdown (Realtime Worlds) [2009]

• Crash Bandicoot (Naughty Dog) [2011]

• Darkest of Days (8Monkey) [2009]

• Deadliest Warrior (Pipeworks Software) [2010]

• Deadly Premonition (Access Games) [2015]

• Deus Ex (Ion Storm) [2000]

• Diablo II (Blizzard) [2000]

• DOOM [VIDEO] (Tom Hall, John Romero) [2011]

• Elite [VIDEO] (David Braben) [2011]

• Fallout [VIDEO] (Timothy Cain, Obsidian Entertainment) [2012]

• Fallout Tactics (Micro Forte) [2001]

• Gauntlet [VIDEO] (Ed Logg) [2012]

• GoldenEye 007 [VIDEO] (Martin Hollis) [2012]

• Galactic Civilizations (Stardock Entertainment) [2003]

• Galactic Civilizations 2: Dread Lords (Stardock Entertainment) [2006]

• God of War: Ascension (Sony Santa Monica) [2013]

• Harvest Moon [VIDEO] (Yasuhiro Wada) [2012]

• Hydro Thunder Hurricane (Vector Unit) [2010]

• Indigo Prophecy (Quantic Dream) [2006]

• Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy (Naughty Dog) [2002]

• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Big Huge Games / 38 Studios) [2013]

• Magicka (Arrowhead Game Studios) [2011]

• Maniac Mansion [VIDEO] (Ron Gilbert, Double Fine Productions) [2011]

• Marble Madness [VIDEO] (Mark Cerny) [2011]

• Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond (Vicious Cycle) [2010]

• Myth: The Fallen Lords (Bungie) [1998]

• Neverwinter Nights (Bioware) [2002]

• No One Lives Forever (Monolith) [2001]

• Okamiden (Capcom) [2011]

• Operation Flashpoint (Bohemia Interactive Studios) [2001]

• Pac-Man [VIDEO] (Toru Iwatani, Namco) [2011]

• Pittfall [VIDEO] (David Crane) [2011]

• Populous [VIDEO] (Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios) [2011]

• Prince of Persia [VIDEO] (Jordan Mechner) [2011]

• Project Gotham Racing 3 (Bizarre Creations) [2005]

• Ratchet & Clank (Insomniac Games) [2003]

• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (Insomniac Games) [2008]

• Rainbow Six (Red Storm Entertainment) [2000]

• Renegade Ops (Avalanche Studios) [2012]

• Resident Evil 4 (Capcom) [2013]

• Sins Of A Solar Empire (Stardock Entertainment) [2012]

• Spider-Man (Treyarch) [2013]

• Splinter Cell (Ubisoft) [2003]

• Super Monkey Ball 2 (Sega/Other Ocean) [2010]

• System Shock 2 (Irrational Games) [1999]

• The World Ends With You (Square Enix) [2009]

• TRON 2.0 (Monolith) [2003]

• Tomb Raider: Underworld (Crystal Dynamics) [2009]

• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 (Krome Studios) [2005]

• Raid on Bungeling Bay [VIDEO] (Will Wright) [2011]

• Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II (Factor 5) [2002]

• Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios) [1999]

• Ultima: Online [VIDEO] (Raph Koster, Rich Vogel, Starr M. Long) [2012]

• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Naughty Dog) [2008]

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Sony Bend Studios) [2012]

• Unreal Tournament (Epic Games) [2000]

• Vampire: The Masquerade — Redemption (Nihilistic Software) [2000]

• Wild 9 (Shiny Entertainment) [2000]

• WipEout Pure (SCEE) [2005]

• Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania (Blue Fang) [2007]

• Video Games Turn 25: A Historical Perspective and Vision for the Future (Satoru Iwata, Nintendo) [2011]

• What Went Wrong? Learning From Past Postmortems (Gamasutra Special) [2009]

Postmortems Videos

GDC Postmortems - Youtube playlist collection of GDC Postmortems

GDD Creation Tools

Dundoc - Avenge your Game Idea and Plunge into the Future Gaming Portal Design your game idea the right way Nuclino - A lightweight and collaborative wiki for all your team's knowledge, docs, and notes.

Game design tools

Arrow - Arrow is a handy, free, open-source and feature-rich tool to design game narrative, develop text-adventures, or create any other kind of nonlinear interactive storytelling document.

Game development

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development - Comprehensive book on math related to game development (Simply an amazing book about teaching math used in game development in a nice and easy manner) now for Free! COLLISION DETECTION by Jeff Thompson - This book explains the algorithms behind those collisions using basic shapes like circles, rectangles, and lines so you can implement them into your own projects.

"Alternative" engines

Bevy - Free, Rust, game engine - Quote from site: A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust Free and Open Source Forever!

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